Officers from the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) conduct checks on vessels to ensure that undesirable persons or security sensitive materials do not slip into the country through the coastal checkpoints. It seemed like another ordinary day on 26 August 2010 when the ICA Anti-Smuggling Team (AST) set off for their routine rounds of checks on the vessels that called at the Singapore ports. The AST vessel had arrived at the Pandan River at about 9pm and boarded the ferry boat “MV Ocean Raider” to conduct a check. The vessel had arrived from Indonesia with nine Indonesian crew members on board and everything seemed to be in order – or maybe just at first glance.


“MV Ocean Raider”

2 Not wasting a minute, the ICA officers embarked on a systematic check of the 300-seater passenger vessel after serving the 27-year-old Master a search notice. When the AST officers came around to a storeroom, they noticed that there were many oil drums scattered around the room. All the drums were heavy and required some effort to move. But the vigilant AST officers noticed that certain drums near the entrance of a room were exceptionally heavy. Feeling something amiss, the officers joined forces to move the heavy drums away and found a floorboard beneath the oil drums. After more than half hour of hard work, the officers were greeted with 40 boxes of duty unpaid cigarettes wrapped in black plastic bags. Yet again, the ICA officers had foiled another smuggling attempt!

   
Why are these exceptionally heavy? Gotcha!



More boxes of contraband cigarettes discovered!

3 In all, a total of 2,000 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes were found stashed underneath the floorboard. The total value of the contraband cigarettes is about $196,500 while the potential customs duty and GST payable for the cigarettes amounted to about $166,150 and $13,850 respectively.


Loot Busted!

4 Two of the Indonesian crew admitted that they were involved in the smuggling attempt and had planned to deliver the 2,000 cartons of cigarettes to a Singaporean at the Pandan River Bridge. They were promised a sum of S$8 for every carton of cigarettes smuggled into Singapore. The duo and the contraband cigarettes have been handed over to Singapore Customs for further investigation. The vessel used in the commission of the offence has also been detained and is liable for forfeiture.

5 The ICA would like to remind ferry operators to ensure that their vessels are not used for smuggling unlawful goods or persons into Singapore as they would ultimately have to bear the cost of their employees’ wrongdoings. Upon conviction by the court, first time offenders can be fined up to 20 times the amount of duty evaded and liable to a jail term not exceeding three years. For second or subsequent convictions, offenders can be fined up to 40 times the amount of duty evaded and jailed for up to six years. The offenders also face further fines based on the amount of GST evaded.

6 Our borders are our first line of defence in safeguarding Singapore's security. The enhanced security checks are critical to our nation’s security. We have tightened our 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
30 AUGUST 2010