Customs seize fags worth over Rs.9 bn

A large consignment of of Illegally imported cigarettes worth more than Rs.9 billion was seized today by a team of officers attached to the Customs Compliance and Facilitation Division, Customs Deputy Director (Legal Affairs) and Media Spokesman Sudattha Silva said.

He said 21 containers were brought to Colombo Port declaring them as 'Sri Lankan Spices'.

The containers were scheduled to be re-exported to countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, the United States under the name of a popular local tea exporting company.

The cigarette consignment were detected during a customs inspection carried out on three containers, the Spokesman said.

He said the customs investigations officers claimed that there might be more than 200 million cigarette sticks in the containers.

The customs investigations revealed that the racketeers might have been attempting to sell those cigarettes in the local market.

The customs suspect these illegal importing might have been done by internationally organised racketeers, the spokesman added. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)

Pix by Nimalsiri Edirisinghe