Customs seize Rs.3m worth of fags brought by Chinese woman

Cigarettes were meant for Chinese workers at SL construction projects

A Chinese woman, who tried to smuggle in 300 cartons of cigarettes of a Chinese variety worth over Rs.3 million, was arrested by the Customs officials at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) yesterday morning, making it the first detection of illegal cigarettes this year.

The tourist who had come on a Chinese airline had entered the Arrival Terminal with two baggages carrying these cartons neatly packed inside with no specific concealment method.

Deputy Director of Customs BIA Parakrama Basnayake told the Daily Mirror the Customs officials performed a random check and searched the woman and discovered the illegal cigarettes in her baggage. He said the attempts by various people to smuggle in cigarettes especially of Chinese brands had increased drastically due to the heavy demand it has in Sri Lanka.

Customs investigations had found that Chinese workers who were employed in large numbers at development projects in and around Colombo showed a liking for Chinese cigarette brands instead of the local brands, he said.

Several detections carried out in October and November last year had also turned up cigarettes of Chinese brands.“one of these cartons is sold for over Rs.10, 000 in the black market and the demand is growing, tempting smugglers to attempt to bring in more and more,” DDC Basnayake said. Since the smuggling of cigarettes was on the increase Customs have started imposing heavy fines on batches of cigarettes which could go upto as much as Rs.100, 000, apart from forfeiting the stocks of cigarettes that had been brought in.

The Customs Unit at the BIA Arrival Terminal is conducting inquiries on the instructions of Director Rohitha Uduwela and Deputy Directors Parakrama Basnayake and Darshana Silva.

The suspect Chinese woman was being detained for further questioning at the BIA.