Navi Mumbai: Customs Seize 6.3 Million Smuggled Cigarette Sticks Worth ₹6.5 Crore At Nhava Sheva Port; 1 Held

In a major crackdown on the smuggling of cigarettes, the officers of the Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch (Import) (SIIB) (I), Jawaharlal Nehru Custom House (JNCH), Nhava Sheva, have intercepted and seized over 63,00,000 sticks of cigarettes stored in a container. The seizure value of the smuggled cigarettes in the said consignment is around Rs. 6.5 crores, officials had said on Saturday.

Statement Of Customs Officials

According to the Customs officials, the consignment of Platinum 7” foreign brand Cigarettes was kept in one 20-foot container, which was attempted to be smuggled by misdeclaring them as "PP Sports Flooring"  in the import documents. On the basis of input received from the Container Scanning Division, JNCH, the SIIB (I), was put on hold one container, and a detailed examination was conducted.

"Upon examination, approximately 63,16,000 sticks of “Platinum 7” International Brand Cigarettes were found in place of “PP Sports Flooring". The smugglers resort to various modus operandi to smuggle cigarettes into India. In this case, a unique modus was adopted wherein “PP Sports Flooring” was declared in place of Cigarettes because it seems “PP Sports Flooring” produced similar images in the initial scanning," said.

The Customs officials, on the basis of the information gathered during the investigation, have arrested one alleged mastermind, in connection with this smuggling of cigarettes.