The Immigration and Checkpoint Authority (ICA) officers at Woodlands Checkpoint have uncovered two separate cases of Malaysians attempting to smuggle in duty-unpaid cigarettes on Wednesday, January 23.
In a Facebook post, the ICA stated that the officials found those illegal cigarettes inside two Malaysia registered cars, which were driven by two female alleged offenders.
When the first car, driven by a 33-year-old unnamed woman, came to the checkpoint, officers detected anomalies in the undercarriage. While inspecting the vehicle, they found 460 packets of cigarettes, which were hidden inside a modified fuel tank.
Later, the officials checked the second car, which was driven by a female driver, aged 33 and they uncovered 30 cartons of cigarettes from the vehicle. As per the Facebook post, the ICA officers uncovered these duty-unpaid cigarettes in the speaker compartment in the car boot.
However, after the officers successfully found the illegal cigarettes, the authority referred both the cases to Singapore Customs. Currently, the investigation is going on.
In addition, ICA said, "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 to prevent smuggling attempts of undesirable persons, drugs, weapons, explosives and other contrabands."
As per the Singapore Customs, in such cases, usually, offenders may settle the 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.
