50 lakh cigarette sticks imported as 'water purifier'
The Chattogram Custom House seized the shipment from the port’s yard on Thursday night, confirmed Deputy Commissioner of the Audit and Investigation department of Chittagong Customs House Khairul Bashar.
Customs authority in Chattogram has seized a container of 50 lakh cigarette sticks that were imported from Thailand through a false declaration as "water purifiers".
Dhaka's Hamco Corporation Limited imported the container full of "Mond" branded cigarettes. But in the Letter of Credit (LC), it declared the consignment as 300 packages of water filters being imported from Asian Global Company Limited in Bangkok.
The Chattogram Custom House seized the shipment from the port's yard on Thursday night, confirmed Deputy Commissioner of the Audit and Investigation department of Chittagong Customs House Khairul Bashar.
The Singapore-flagged ship MV Kota Anggun arrived at Jetty No 10 of General Cargo Berth of Chittagong Port with the shipment yesterday at 3pm.
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Acting on a tip-off, customs officials went there to physically check the shipment and found 2,500 cartons of cigarettes instead of any water filter.
Customs official Khairul told TBS that a syndicate was illegally importing cigarettes from abroad in order to evade tax.
According to customs officials, an importer has to pay 596.20% duty to import cigarettes, following all the conditions.
The imported cigarettes' market value is Tk5 crore, Khairul said.
According to Article 25 (10) of the Import Policy Order 2021-2024, the statutory warning 'Smoking is injurious to health' must be clearly printed in Bangla on the pack of imported cigarettes.
However, in the case of importing bonded warehouse cigarettes, such a statutory warning may be printed on the cigarette packet in any language other than Bangla. But there is no such writing on the seized cigarettes.
The importer has verbally told customs officials that they have not imported the consignment, according to customs officials.
Khairul informed reporters that preparations are underway to take legal action against the importer and others involved in this shipment under the Customs Act.
