PORT KLANG: Almost RM200,000 worth of contraband cigarettes were seized by the marine police in Klang yesterday morning.
Based on intelligence, a team of six marine police officers had kept surveillance of a double storey house in Taman Sentosa here before raiding it about 10.20am.
Marine police 1st Region commander Assistant Commissioner Rosman Ismail said the officers found four men arranging boxes inside the house and upon inspection found the boxes filled with cartons of smuggled cigarettes.
He said there were 28 boxes in the house, containing 1,423 cartons of white and kretek cigarettes.
He added that 1,283 cartons were white cigarettes while 140 cartons were kretek cigarettes.
The value and taxes of the white cigarettes is estimated at almost RM185,000 while the kretek cigarettes are valued at about RM13,000 including taxes.
Four local men aged between 22 and 24 years have been arrested and are being investigated under the Customs Act 1967 for smuggling and tax evasion.
Rosman said police investigations showed that the modus operandi of the syndicates involved in cigarette smuggling had changed and they were now using houses in residential areas as stores.
This is in order to avoid detection by the authorities. Previously the usual storage places were shoplots or empty houses along Selangor’s long coastline.
Boats from neighbouring countries usually sneak in at night to land at several places along the coast and the contraband cargo is quickly off loaded and stored at nearby places.
According to a study done by a UK-based advisory firm Oxford Economics, cigarettes being smuggled into Malaysia cost the government RM5.1 billion in lost cigarette taxes every year.
The study was commissioned by British American Tobacco (BAT) and it showed that Malaysia has the highest illegal cigarette incidence in the world.
This averages out to losses of almost RM100 million weekly due to cigarette smuggling.
This has cost the government RM13.5 billion of revenue in unpaid taxes since Malaysia raised excise duties on cigarettes in 2015.
It also indicates that six out of 10 cigarettes sold in Malaysia are illegal and does not contribute any tax to the government.
The report also said that illegal cigarette sales now dominate the country with 1,000 packs of illegal cigarettes being bought every minute across the country.
Rosman said the marine police was well aware of the problem and was continuously trying to curb the smuggling activities with increased intelligence gathering.
He also urged the public to tip off the police if they come across illegal activities in their neighbourhoods.