5 held by DRI for smuggling foreign brand cigarettes worth Rs 24 cr

New Delhi, May 14

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Mumbai branch on Sunday said that they have arrested five persons and recovered 1.2 crore sticks of foreign origin cigarettes worth Rs 24 crore.

The accused were smuggling the cigarettes via containers, said the DRI, adding that they identified a container suspected of carrying contraband at the Nhava Sheva Port.

"The container was supposed to be trans-shipped to Arshiya Free Trade Warehousing Zone for further clearance. Discrete vigil was kept on the movement of the container. It was found that, after the container left the port, instead of reaching its destination, the same was diverted to a private godown while it was en route to Arshiya," said the official.

Later, the officers monitoring the movement of the said container immediately sensed the suspicious activities and intercepted the container at the godown.

The DRI said that the entire 40 feet container was found to be stuffed with foreign-origin cigarettes which are banned for import into India due to their non compliance with Indian standards.

"The syndicate had planned to smuggle those cigarettes by way of removing them out from the container and replacing the same with goods declared in import documents in order to hoodwink the Custom authorities.

"The godown was already stocked with the declared goods which were supposed to be stuffed in the container after removing the cigarettes, before the container was taken into Arshiya FTZ," said the official.

The official said that 1.07 crore sticks of foreign origin cigarettes of Esse, Dunhill, Mond and Gudang Garam brands were recovered from the imported container.

Later in a swift follow-up operation, another stash of 13 lakh cigarettes of foreign origin of various brands like Esse lights, Mond which were smuggled earlier by the same syndicate were seized from another godown.

"DRI has been constantly engaged in busting such designs of smuggling syndicates smuggling contrabands, misusing SEZ and FTWZ schemes, thereby protecting government revenue and also protecting society from harmful effects of illicit tobacco," the official said.

Further investigation in the matter was on.