SEPANG: The Customs Department intercepted a shipment of 40,000 cartons of cigarettes which were falsely declared as plastic products here with unpaid duties amounting to more than RM4 million ($1.43 million)
KLIA Customs director Datuk Chik Omar Chik Lim said the items, which arrived in a container from China on May 18, were declared as 928 cartons of plastic products comprising chopsticks, containers, bottles and wares worth RM109,431.
Upon inspection, the department found that there were 8,000,000 sticks of illegal cigarettes in 800 boxes.
The items were seized last Wednesday at about 5pm in Port Klang.
Chik Omar said authorities were tracking down the perpetrator behind the smuggling attempt.
“We tried contacting the company but it turned out that the name and address provided were false,” he said at a press conference at the department headquarters here the other day.
The offenders face up to a RM500,000 fine, five years jail, or both.
