Seized foreign cigarettes worth Rs 6.33 crore destroyed

HYDERABAD: A huge piles of cigarettes manufactured in foreign countries and smuggled into India that were seized by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence were destroyed by officials.

The stocks worth Rs 6.50 crore smuggled from UAE and England were seized by the DRE in 2017 at the Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Timmapur in Rangareddy district on the city outskirts.

According to Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch (SIIB) sources, the seized cigarettes were destroyed by a private agency as per the orders of the Telangana Pollution Control Board (PCB).

The destroyed stocks include 45.3 lakh cigarettes, of which 15 lakh cigarettes were of London made Benson & Hedges and 30.3 lakh cigarettes were of UAE made Mond brand.