Smuggled cigarettes worth millions seized in raids

Personnel of the Pakistan Customs Intelligence seized smuggled goods, including cigarettes of various brands, worth millions of rupees during a recent crackdown in the city. Syed Irfan Ali, a spokesman for the customs, said that in 24 hours running into Wednesday, four operations in three regions were conducted. Two operations were carried out by the customs intelligence, Karachi, in the wee hours of Wednesday.The first one was carried out near the Boulton Market, in which 250,000 sticks of foreign brands cigarettes valued at Rs10 million were seized. In the 2nd operation, 400,000 sticks of high-end brands of cigarettes valued at Rs25 million were seized in the Saddar area.

On Tuesday evening, intelligence-based operations were carried out in Multan and Dera Ismael Khan where customs intelligence officials seized 1,050,000 sticks of smuggled cigarettes valued at Rs40 million and 40,000 sticks of smuggled cigarettes of Rs4 million respectively. The customs intelligence also seized 1,780,000 sticks of smuggled cigarettes of Rs79 million between Tuesday and Wednesday. This takes the tally of seizures of smuggled cigarettes by the customs intelligence in 2022-23 to 39,187,000 sticks valued at Rs1.093 billion.The customs intelligence continues its crackdown against smuggled cigarettes under the guidance of Chairman FBR Asim Ahmad and the direct supervision of Director General Customs Intelligence Faiz Ahmad Chadhar.