Smuggled cigarettes worth Rs303m seized

Islamabad : The Customs Intelligence, in a countrywide crackdown against the cigarette smuggling mafia, has seized smuggled cigarettes to the tune of 303 million rupees during 10-day countrywide operation directed by the FBR Chairman Asim Ahmad, a spokesman of the Customs Intelligence said.

Director General Customs Intelligence, Faiz Ahmad Chadhar supervised the nationwide operation against the mafia, supplying smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes all over Pakistan, he maintained. The largest cache was recovered from Baluchistan where Customs Intelligence seized 4,280,000 packs of foreign brand cigarettes valuing 114.2 million rupees, while, Sindh eight operations have resulted in the seizure of 1,420,700 sticks of high end brands of cigarettes valuing RS69.7 million. Similarly, during intelligence based operations in Punjab, the custom intelligence team seized 1,294,000 sticks of smuggled cigarettes valuing Rs75.3 million. Likewise, KPK customs intelligence has seized 1,155,000 sticks of smuggled cigarettes valuing Rs43.9 million.

Taken altogether, during the last 10 days customs intelligence has seized 8,149,700 sticks of smuggled cigarettes valuing Rs303 millions. This takes the tally of seizures of smuggled cigarettes by the intelligence in the current FY2022-23 to 33,994,850 packs valuing Rs1,324 million. The chairman FBR, Asim Ahmad, and the director general, customs intelligence, Faiz Ahmed Chadhar, lauded the efforts of customs intelligence Quetta, Karachi, Multan, Gwadar, Hyderabad, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar and acknowledged that despite minimal human resource and logistics customs intelligence is effectively doing efforts to eradicate the menace of smuggling in general and of smuggled cigarettes in particular.