Singapore Tuas Checkpoint contraband bust: 980 cigarette cartons found in Malaysian lorry
JOHOR BARU: A Malaysia-registered lorry was found carrying more than 980 cartons of contraband cigarettes concealed beneath a modified floorboard during an inspection at Singapore’s Tuas Checkpoint on Oct 16.
On October 16, a Malaysia-registered lorry was intercepted at Singapore's Tuas Checkpoint containing more than 980 cartons of smuggled cigarettes. The 39-year-old Malaysian driver was taken into custody after Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers discovered the illicit cargo beneath a modified floorboard. The ICA's social media shared a video of officers removing platform steps from around the lorry's container area and extracting the cartons using cargo-securing straps.
The find was triggered by an anomaly spotted by an ICA image analyst examining the lorry's scanned images.
ICA officials seized the cigarettes and the driver, handing them over to Singapore Customs. Under Singapore's laws, the penalties for bringing duty-unpaid goods into the country include fines up to 40 times the duty evaded, imprisonment of up to six years, or both. The confiscated vehicles and profits from the sale of the duty-unpaid goods could also be forfeited. Last year, ICA detected over 57,000 cases of contraband goods at Singapore's checkpoints.
Written by urgent.news from New Straits Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
