Three men were arrested and 7,392 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes and two trucks were seized in an operation conducted at the vicinity of Sunview Road earlier on 21 December 2019.
Singapore Customs said in a press release on Tuesday (31 December) that its officers conducted observation at an industrial building at Sunview Road and saw the transfer of boxes suspected to contain duty-unpaid cigarettes from a Malaysia-registered truck to a Singapore-registered truck parked beside it.
A check of the cartons was conducted by its officers and 7,392 cartons of cigarettes were found. Three men – a Singaporean, and two Malaysians, aged between 35 and 39 – were placed under arrest.
The cigarettes were also seized, the authority noted.
Subsequently, a follow-up search was conducted at an industrial unit in Gul Road, where officers uncovered 14 hollow concrete blocks.
Investigations revealed that the duty-unpaid cigarettes found in the two trucks were earlier retrieved from these concrete blocks.
According to the authority, the duty and Goods and Services Tax (GST) evaded amounted to about $631,270 and $46,540 respectively.
Court proceedings against the three men are ongoing, said the authority.
The custom stressed that buying, selling, conveying, delivering, storing, keeping, having in possession or dealing with duty-unpaid goods are serious offences under the Customs Act and the GST Act.
Offenders can be fined up to 40 times the amount of duty and GST evaded and/or jailed for up to six year and vehicles used in the commission of such offences are also liable to be forfeited.
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