By laying cigarettes beneath bags of salt, one might have thought that the smugglers were attempting to produce smoked salt for an aromatic seasoning. On the other hand, it could also be saltish cigarettes (yucks!) that they are trying to concoct. But either way, they were not going to get away with it, not under the eagle watch of the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers at the borders.

2 On the first day of February at about 4.20pm, a Malaysia-registered lorry was stopped for routine checks at one of the world’s busiest checkpoints, Woodlands Checkpoint. ICA officers manning the scanner observed anomalies during an image scan of the vehicle conveying 680 bags of salt.



A savoury consignment

3 The checking officers then moved in to conduct more detailed checks on the conveyance. Consistent with the images of the electronic eyes, they too, noticed boxes between the crevices of the unusually low floorboard. Unloading the consignment of condiments was no mean feat as each sack of salt weighed up to 50 kilogrammes. But the laborious task only made the fruits of their hard work sweeter when they uncovered a total of 17,500 packets of illegal smokes stashed in the modified floorboard of the lorry. The potential Customs duty and GST payable of the contraband amount to about S$123,000 and S$11,000 respectively.

  

A smoky seizure

4 The 24-year-old Malaysian driver admitted knowledge of the duty-unpaid cigarettes found. He claimed that he was approached by his boss, one male Malaysian Indian "Chandran", to bootleg the loot to Singapore. The Indian male added that he was asked to unload the salt consignment before parking his lorry in a lorry park somewhere in Bukit Timah. He will leave the vehicle there and return to Johor Bahru. If he carried out the job successfully, he would be rewarded with a sum of RM1,500. As he was facing financial hardship, he gave in to temptation and took up the offer. The driver, contraband cigarettes, truck and cargo were handed over to the Singapore Customs for further investigations.

5 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 vehicle used in conveying the contraband will also be liable for forfeiture.


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, cargoes and conveyances 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 more sinister attacks in Singapore.


IMMIGRATION & CHECKPOINTS AUTHORITY
3 February 2010