Fashionistas and those with a fetish for shoes may claim to be much updated about the latest footwear in town. Perhaps they really do, except for a new line of heels that the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers have gotten their hands (or feet) on. Before those hot heels can even make it to the shoe racks here, they are already in the hands of the ICA officers immediately after they arrived in Singapore!

2. On Thursday, 25 March 2010 at about 1.40pm, a Malaysia-registered lorry with three consignments of ladies shoes and pharmaceutical items packed in boxes arrived at the Woodlands Checkpoint. During a routine check, the ICA officer noted anomalies in the scanned images of the goods and directed the driver to the inspection pit for a more thorough check.


The innocuous-looking lorry carrying the loot

3. In the course of the check, the observant ICA officers noticed unusual findings. The experienced officers became suspicious as they uncovered discrepancies in the labelling, placement as well as the weight of the boxes of ladies shoes. The officers decided then to unload the boxes for further checks. It did not take long before the officers confirmed their suspicion of the stuff inside the boxes.

4. The ICA officers found a total of 3,360 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes in 56 boxes that were not labeled. 177 boxes were found to contain ladies shoes as labelled while 11 other cartons of pharmaceutical items were found to be in order.

  
Can you guess which boxes genuinely contain shoes?

5. The 31-year old Malaysian Chinese driver claimed that he had only started work with the Malaysian transport company about three weeks ago. He is paid a daily wage of 70 ringgit. He was assisted by the co-driver when he collected the consignments from Johor in the morning on 25 Mar. Thereafter, he was to drive the lorry into Singapore. As he was unfamiliar with the roads in Singapore, the co-driver was to take over the lorry after immigration and customs clearance to deliver the consignments to their intended locations in Singapore.

6. The 54-year old Malaysian Indian co-driver claimed that he had worked for the same transport company for a few years. After assisting the main driver to collect the consignments from Johor, he was to deliver the pharmaceutical items to a company at Ubi Ave 1. Thereafter, a consignment of the ladies shoes will be sent to a warehouse at Kallang Way while the rest of the shoes were to be delivered to the ports for export.

7. The potential customs duty and GST payable for the contraband cigarettes amount to S$236,500 and S$21,400 respectively. The two drivers, the seized contrabands and the lorry were handed over to the Singapore Customs (SC) for further investigations.

  
Total exhibits uncovered within stacks of boxes containing ladies shoes

8. Even those seemingly innocuous ladies shoes failed to escape ICA officers’ alert senses! Smugglers who are never tired of challenging our officers with all possible means of concealment should come to terms with the fact that our officers are always “hot on their heels”. 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.

9. Travellers who are caught importing uncustomed goods will be dealt with under the Customs Act, Cap 70. 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. The vehicles used in conveying the contraband will also be liable for forfeiture.

IMMIGRATION & CHECKPOINTS AUTHORITY
29 MARCH 2010