When officers from the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) saw the huge consignment inside the truck they were about to check in detail, they knew that it was going to be a tedious assignment ahead. Equipped with crowbars in their hands, the men in blue were ready to start work using both their brawn and brains - literally.

2. On Monday, 2 November 2009 at about 1pm, a Malaysia-registered truck was stopped for a routine check at the Old Woodlands Checkpoint. The ICA officers had detected anomalies during an image scan of the truck that was conveying one consignment of “One set of Food Production Cold Room”. Subsequently the truck was subjected to a more thorough examination by the officers.

3. The consignment was 31 pieces of 8 feet x 22 feet panels that were thick insulating materials used for cold rooms. Each of the panel was welded with a metal sheet. From their experience, the officers suspected that the anomalies detected at the earlier image scanning could be due to something concealed within the panels, beneath the metal sheets.

4. It took the officers several hours of muscle flexing to painstakingly ply open all the 31 panels with the crowbars. By the time they were done, a heap of duty-unpaid cigarettes was recovered from within the cavity of the insulation materials. A total of 50,988 packets of contraband cigarettes were apparently hidden in the centre cavity of the panels – all except one panel that was only a metal refrigerator door. The potential Customs duty and GST payable of the contrabands amount to about S$359,000 and S$32,500 respectively.

  

Contraband cigarettes hidden in the panels

5. When questioned by the ICA officers, the 36-year old driver claimed that he was tasked by his boss, a Malaysian Chinese, to drive the truck from Johor Bahru to Pandan Loop. He also maintained that the vehicle belonged to his boss whom he called “Uncle”; and that he had only worked for “Uncle” for a week. Someone was to meet him in Singapore to unload the consignment before he was supposed to drive the truck back to “Uncle” in Johor Bahru. He would be paid RM100 for the job. The driver, contraband cigarettes, truck and cargo were subsequently handed over to Singapore Customs for further investigations.

6. 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.

7. 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
4 NOVEMBER 2009