Customs seize smuggled cigarettes in raids

Customs officials last Friday crowned a surveillance exercise when they seized 132,000 cigarettes that had entered the country illegally.

To make their job a little easier, during one of their raids a van arrived on the spot to unload more illegally imported cigarettes.

In the van, officers found 410 boxes, each containing 200 cigarettes. Two people were arrested by police at the scene.

The raids were carried out jointly by members of the Customs Enforcement Unit and the police at garages in three villages.

A spokesman for the Customs Department said that, in two of these garages, they found 250 boxes, each containing 200 cigarettes on which excise duty had not been paid.

From the same garages the authorities also seized bottles of alcoholic beverages. It is not yet known whether these were also imported illegally.