On 8 October 2014 at about 4.15pm, a lone male Malaysian, aged 32, was directed by the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers at the Tuas Checkpoint for a routine check upon arrival. He was driving a Malaysia-registered lorry declared to be transporting consignments of garments and thermal paper.

 

2.         During the course of inspection, ICA officers noticed there were some boxes placed in between the consignments that were not labelled. Upon further checks, they discovered cartons of duty unpaid cigarettes within the boxes.  Subsequently, they found more contraband cigarettes packed in boxes stacked in 5 different pallets among the cargo.  The officers uncovered a total of 5,000 cartons of duty unpaid cigarettes with the potential customs duty and GST of S$388,000 and S$37,310 respectively.  The estimated value of the duty-unpaid cigarettes is about S$533,000.  This is the single largest detection of contraband cigarettes (in quantity and value) at Tuas Checkpoint thus far this year.

 

3.         Over at the Woodlands Checkpoint, ICA officers also detected 2,999 cartons of contraband cigarettes concealed within a consignment of vegetables in a Malaysia-registered lorry.  The detection was made during a routine check when the ICA officers directed the lone male Malaysian driver, aged 29, for thorough inspection upon its arrival on 9 October 2014 at about 6.25am.  There were anomalies observed in the scanned image of the consignment.  The potential customs duty and GST of the duty unpaid cigarettes amounted to about S$232,720 and S$22,380 respectively. The estimated value of the duty-unpaid cigarettes is about S$319,700.

 

4.         In both cases, the men, the seized exhibits and the lorries were handed over to Singapore Customs for further investigations. Vehicles used in the commission of such offences are liable to be forfeited.

 

5.         Our borders are our first line of defence in safeguarding Singapore's security. The security checks are critical to our nation’s security.  We will continue to conduct security checks on passengers and vehicles at the checkpoints to prevent attempts to smuggle in undesirable persons, drugs, weapons, explosives and other contrabands.  The same methods of concealment used by contraband smugglers may be used by terrorists to smuggle arms and explosives to carry out attacks in Singapore.

 

IMMIGRATION & CHECKPOINTS AUTHORITY

10 OCTOBER 2014


DETECTION AT TUAS CHECKPOINT

5,000 cartons of contraband cigarettes uncovered


DETECTION AT WOODLANDS CHECKPOINT


Contraband cigarettes hidden within a consignment of vegetables

2,999 cartons of contraband cigarettes uncovered