Indian officials seize foreign cigarettes worth crores

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence recovered cigarettes worth Rs 3.24 crore from a concealed container in Mumbai.

Mumbai (Maharashtra): The Mumbai zonal unit of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) have allegedly recovered 18,00,000 sticks of Gudang Garam cigarettes worth around Rs 3.24 crores concealed in a container that arrived from Dubai on January 7, informed DRI officials on Sunday.

"Officers of DRI Mumbai intercepted and examined an imported container which had arrived from Dubai last week. 18,00,000 sticks of Gudang Garam cigarettes, concealed in the consignments declared as carrying ladies footwears. Cigarettes along with the cover cargo of ladies footwear were seized," the officials said adding that the value of seized cigarettes is around Rs 3.24 crores.

DRI also informed that the KYC of some poor person has been misused to fraudulently obtaining the Import-Export Code from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).

"Smuggling of cigarettes is a serious offence. It causes huge revenue loss for the government, and the smuggled cigarettes do not carry the mandatory statutory warning on the packets that do not follow the public awareness statutory requirements as per the law of the land," officials added.

(ANI)