Customs destroy Rs. 60 mn worth cigarettes

A consignment worth more than Rs. 60 million of illegally imported cigarettes from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was destroyed at the Ceylon Tobacco Company warehouse in Colombo today, Customs Director and head of the Risk Management Unit Sudath de Silva said.

He said the stock consisted of over 1,040,000 sticks in 5200 cartons. The contraband was brought into Sri Lanka as a shipment on August 07, 2018, in a 40-foot container. “The container had declared to the customs as imported electronic items and it was taken to customs custody during the scanning. The container was addressed to a person in Colombo but the customs officers found out that the address was fake,” he said. 26 boxes of electronic items were stacked inside the container to cover the cigarette boxes, Mr. Silva added. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)