Singapore's Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers arrested a Malaysian man, who is in his 50s, at Woodlands Checkpoint on Thursday, February 7 for smuggling chewing tobacco.
In a Facebook post, ICA wrote, "Think you can just run away?" and stated that their officers at the checkpoint searched the alleged smuggler at around 4.45 am.
After conducting a search they found a total of 1,169 packets of chewing tobacco, which was hidden inside the carrier box of the motorcycle of the unnamed accused, as well as from his raincoat bag, haversack and his shoes.
Soon after discovering the illegal item from the Malaysian man, ICA referred this case to the Health Sciences Authority. Further investigation is going on.
In the post, the authority also added, "Our borders are our first line of defence in safeguarding Singapore's security. The ICA will continue to conduct security checks on passengers and vehicles at the checkpoints to prevent attempts to smuggle in undesirable persons, drugs, weapons, explosives and other contrabands."
As per the Singapore Customs, usually, offenders may settle customs offences by an out-of-court composition sum or prosecution in court. The penalty for a customs offence is a composition sum of up to S$5000, or prosecution in court, depending on the severity of the offence.
