MUMBAI: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) recovered 18,00,000 sticks of Gudang Garam cigarettes concealed in an imported container that arrived from Dubai on January 7.
The consignment of cigarettes was seized.
According to officials, the value of seized cigarettes is estimated to be around Rs 3.24 crore. During a probe, the investigators stated that like previous such consignments of cigarettes caught by DRI Mumbai, this consignment was also imported in the name of a poor person whose KYC documents had been misused to fraudulently obtain Import Export Code from DGFT.
"They stated that the smuggling of cigarettes is a very serious offence as not only the Government loses huge revenue, taxes being more than 100% on these sin goods, but also the smuggled cigarettes do not carry the mandatory statutory warning on the packets," officials added.