Officials seized foreign-made cigarettes valued at ₹3.24 crores at the Nhava Sheva Port in Navi Mumbai on Jan 7. The seizure was made by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Thursday with officials adding that the cigarettes were hidden inside covers of women’s footwear.
Elaborating further on the seizures, officials added that they confiscated 18,00,000 Gudang Garam cigarette sticks as they were hidden within an import container and sent from Dubai. Officials intercepted the container after they received a tip.
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The smugglers used KYC documents of another person to receive the import-export code from the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), following which the consignments were being smuggled into Nhava Sheva. This plan was drafted by the culprits as a way to evade arrest.
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DRI officials said that though no arrests have been made so far, they have viable information on the suspects and smugglers while staying confident that the culprits will be arrested soon.
“We have learnt that the cigarettes came from a port in Dubai. But we are trying to find out whether Dubai was a transit point for these smugglers or the cigarettes were imported from there,” an official said. The official added that smugglers have used this method to smuggle cigarettes into the country before.
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