Western Railway seizes illegally transported Korean cigarettes

Among the goods being ferried in trains, the railway authorities found Korean cigarettes being unlawfully transported. On February 23, the Vigilance department of Western Railway detected the shipping of these prohibited items without proper papers.

On February 16, during a check of lease compartment of Golden Temple Mail train at Mumbai Central station, the officers found 5 suspicious packages that were later detained. The WR officials said that these packages were without E-way bill and invoices. These parcels also evaded GST.

Later on February 23, the Vigilance team comprising of Inspectors Micky Saxsena, Manoj Yadav and H.N Dave opened the packages. The approximate cost of this consignment was around Rs 15-20 lakh.

"In one of the packages ESSE LIGHTS brand imported cigarettes were detected, with total 320 packets consisting of 64,000 cigarettes," said Sumit Thakur, Chief PRO, Western Railway.

These cigarettes were imported from Korea and were having similar batch numbers which implies to be counterfeit. These prohibited cigarettes trade is on a growth trajectory due to high tax arbitrage. Further, it being illegal item they have huge demand in black market. Since January 19 the authorities are carrying out these checks in long distance trains.