The Dubbo Photo News page dedicated to the hard work of our emergency services personnel. Police refer online cigarette sales to Border Force

DUBBO and the central west could soon be crawling with federal agents.

A bloke was spotted spruiking on Facebook that he’s “got some more cigarettes below cost” and advising people to message for details.

The cigarette packets in the accompanying photo are not in plain packaging, so they’re most likely from overseas. That’s what the local cops think anyway, so they’ve refereed the Facebook post to Border Force. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this because selling imported cut-price cigarettes privately could potentially contravene a large number of laws and rules.

Border Force won’t be the only federal agency looking at tobacco in this area, with Dunedoo police seizing 800kg of illicit dried leaf.

“About 11.40pm on Saturday night (March 10) police in Dunedoo on a proactive patrol saw a Toyota Hi-ace on the Golden Highway driving through the township of Dunedoo,” a police statement said.

“Police stopped the vehicle that had three males on board, it was then police noticed a strong organic smell being omitted from the vehicle.

“Upon searching the vehicle police located a number of large pressed bales of dried tobacco leaf which appeared to be freshly harvested,” the statement continued.

All three were brought to Dubbo’s police station and they were subsequently released pending further investigation, and the matter has been referred to the Australian Tax Office’s (ATO) excise section – the feds don’t like people who don’t pay tax on tobacco.