4,844 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes seized at Woodlands checkpoint

Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers made a seizure of 4,844 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes at Woodlands checkpoint on 6 February 2017 at about 3.20pm.
It said that its officers directed a Malaysia-registered lorry, driven by a lone 50-year-old male Malaysian, for further checks upon its arrival.
ICA said that its officers had noticed anomalies in the scanned images of the lorry declared to contain a consignment of cooking oil. During the course of checks, officers found duty-unpaid cigarettes hidden in one of the boxes among the consignment. Further checks on a few other boxes revealed more duty-unpaid cigarettes.
ICA then said that the driver, the exhibits and the lorry were handed over to the Singapore Customs for further investigations.
According to ICA, the potential duty as well as Goods and Services Tax of the duty-unpaid cigarettes evaded amounted to about S$382,600 and S$23,320 respectively. The vehicle used in the commission of such offences is liable to be forfeited.

ICA stated that it will continue to conduct security checks on passengers and vehicles at the checkpoints to prevent attempts to smuggle in undesirable persons, drugs, weapons, explosives and other contrabands, noting that the same methods of concealment used by contraband smugglers may be used by terrorists to smuggle arms and explosives to carry out attacks in Singapore.