Customs seize duty-unpaid foreign cigarettes

VIJAYAWADA: Vijayawada Customs seized 3 lakh cigarette sticks of foreign origin valued at ₹30 lahks, as no duty had been paid on them.

Customs commissioner K. Engineer said they received information that foreign-origin cigarettes are being unloaded near Chirala Road in Chilakaluripeta of Guntur district. When their team reached there, they found labour loading HDPE bags onto some rickshaws under the supervision of an agent. On questioning, the agent could not produce any invoice other than LR copies.

Customs officers opened one of the white bags and found PARIS brand cigarette cartons bearing Burmese script with no pictorial warning or date, year of manufacture or MRP on the packet. They seized the entire consignment of 30,00,000 sticks under provisions of the Customs Act, of 1962.

Smuggling foreign cigarettes is a lucrative business for black marketers to make huge profits by avoiding customs duty.

In the past nine months, Vijayawada Customs have seized foreign cigarettes being smuggled into AP using different modus operandi. They have so far seized around 16 million foreign-origin smuggled cigarette sticks valued at ₹15 crores.
Further investigation is in progress.