Bogus fags worth Rs.45 m seized

Lakmini Rodrigo and Ramani Bogoda

COLOMBO: Six million cigarettes worth Rs.45 million were examined and fumigated prior to their destruction by the Custom officers yesterday at the Custom Office premises, Customs assistant director K.A. Dharmasena told the Daily News.

He added that by the seizure of these cigarettes more than Rs. one billion Government revenue had been secured as the Government gains nearly Rs.7.50 via tax per cigarette.

Thirty thousand cigarette cartons containing two brands of cigarettes produced in China, a duplicate brand of 'Goldleaf' and another brand named 'Goldfeel' were detained by the Sri Lanka Customs Revenue Task Force during the past two months, he added.

They had been sent via sea and air under the guise of unaccompanied personal baggages to false addresses, and therefore all investigations to detect the owners of the baggages had failed so far, Dharmasena said.

He said that most baggages had been sent from Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar and that they would be destroyed next week at the Ceylon Tobacco Corporation premises.

Customs superintendent Sisira de Silva, Assistant superintendents A.M.A. Chandrasena, Nimal Seneviratne, M. Wickramasinghe, D.W.K. Wijeythunga, D.S.K. Rupasinghe, S. Weerakkody, Nissanka Ratnayake and U.D.B. Alawatugoda are investigating.