KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Customs officials have their hands full conducting raids and operations against smugglers and tax evading individuals.
Their latest success was a seizure of 62 containers containing items such as beer, cigarettes, rice and tyres worth more than RM42mil including tax, the biggest seize for Sabah this year.
Assistant director general of Customs (Enforcement) Datuk Paddy Abd Halim said the containers were seized over the course of several raids after Hari Raya Aidil Adha at the Sepanggar port.
“These items comprising of 853, 776 liters of beer from 49 containers, 11mil sticks of cigarette from one container, 25, 000kg of rice from a container, and 11, 000 pieces of tyre from 11 containers are worth RM5.24mil while the tax is valued at RM37.14mil,” he said.
“We believe this is done by a group of syndicates but we are still trying to get more details,” he said during a press conference here Monday. “We are also checking whether the names of companies used to send this goods exist,” Paddy added.
He said this was the largest bust since the department began implementing the Collaborated Border Management this month in Sabah, which involves cooperation from various agencies and departments including the port in identifying smugglers.
“The modus operandi of these suspects is to falsely declare the goods and quantity they send out,” he said.
Paddy said controlled or items which require special permits such as beer, cigarette, tyres and rice were declared as household goods, machinery, hardware and so on.
Prior to this latest raid, customs officials also seized 32 containers containing beer, rice, tyres and other commodities worth RM1.5 mil with a tax of approximately RM4.5mil less than two weeks ago brought in using the same modus operandi.
