The cartons of illicit cigarettes that were seized from the house near here yesterday.
KUCHING (Dec 19): The General Operations Force (GOF) has successfully seized 3,908 cartons of illicit cigarettes stored at a house here yesterday.
A male suspect, who is believed to be the caretaker of the goods, was also detained and handed over to the Padawan district police headquarters for further action.
“The illicit cigarettes consist of 2,858 cartons of regular cigarettes and 1,050 cartons of kretek cigarettes,” said GOF Commander SAC Mancha Ata in a statement today.
Also seized was a van believed to be used to transport the goods, which brought the total seizure estimate to RM 626,460 including tax.
The case will be investigated under Section 135(1)(d) of the Customs Act 1967.
In a separate case, the GOF at a riverbank at Jalan Ujung, Limbang seized 15 cartons of beer, 6,800 sticks of cigarettes of different brands and three motorcycles at around 9pm on Dec 17.
“A GOF team who was conducting a patrol in the area spotted five men who were loading the items into a boat at the riverbank,” said Mancha.
After realising the presence of the GOF personnel, all of the men scrambled and escaped the area on foot.
The seized items worth around RM32,500 were later handed over to the Limbang district police headquarters for investigation under Section 135(1)(d) of the Customs Act 1967.
Earlier on Dec 14, Mancha also revealed that the GOF at Jalan Ensawang, Lubuk Antu managed to detain two local male suspects for allegedly smuggling eight gurney sacks of fish into the country.
“It is believed that the fish were smuggled in from Indonesia by the two suspects,” said Mancha.
Also seized was the pickup truck driven by the suspects, with the total seizures estimated to be worth RM60,000.
The suspects and the seized items were later handed over to the Lubok Antu police station for further investigation under Section 135(1)(d) of the Customs Act 1967.
The GOF since early this year to Dec 18 has recorded a total seizure of more than RM37 million from a total of 158 cases.
The GOF has also detained a total of 429 suspects, out of which 193 are locals while the remaining numbers are illegal immigrants.
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