Foreign cigarettes worth Rs 24 crore seized, 5 held

The officials said that they were closely monitoring the movement of a container at at Nhava Sheva port in Navi Mumbai, after receiving specific information that it was carrying contraband.

According to an official, “The container was supposed to be trans-shipped to Arshiya Free Trade Warehousing Zone for clearance. But the container diverted to a private godown, instead of reaching its destination at Arshiya Free Trade Warehousing Zone.”

The officials monitoring its movement then sent a team to the godown. “We conducted a search in the 40 feet container and found that it was stuffed with foreign-origin cigarettes. Those cigarettes are banned for import into India due to their non-compliance with Indian standards,” said an official.

The DRI officials further added that the group of accused had planned to replace those cigarettes with the goods declared in import documents.

“The syndicate had planned to smuggle those cigarettes by removing them out of the container (in the godown) and replacing the same with goods declared in import documents in order to hoodwink custom authorities before the container was taken to Arshiya FTZ. The godown was already stocked with declared goods,” said an official.

The officials said that 1.07 crore cigarettes of Esse, Dunhill, Mond and Gudang Garam brands were recovered from the imported container.

“In a swift follow-up operation, another stash of 13 lakh cigarettes of brands such as Esse lights, Mond, which were smuggled earlier by the same syndicate were seized from another godown,” said an official.

Five persons involved in the syndicate, including an importer, were arrested by the DRI officials.