Maldives Customs Service has said today that a Customs officer was suspended in relation to the case of Illegally importing cigarettes.
Maldives Customs Service has said today that a Customs officer was suspended in relation to the case of Illegally importing cigarettes.
In today's meeting of the Parliament's Committee on Security Services (241 Committee), Commissioner General of Customs Yoosuf Maniu Mohamed said that in addition to the recent incident of trying to bring in a container of cigarettes, an attempt was also made to bring in cigarettes illegally through air cargo.
He said that part of the shipment had been released into Male' in order to facilitate the identification of persons behind the act of smuggling in these cigarettes.
"If we seize the items at the point, then we do not know who is involved in this. We only know the person who is at the point to receive the items at that time. So we released some of it into Male' and followed it," Maniu said.
Maniu said that with the held of Intelligence as well, the persons behind the act had been identified.
In relation to this case, a Customs Officer who had been manning the scanning machine had been suspended, he revealed.
Last month, Customs seized cigarette cases worth MVR 1.6 million (USD 104,000) which were brought into the country without fulfilling the necessary procedures.
A total of 173 cases of cigarettes were seized in this operation. While the accumulated price of these cases rise to MVR 1.6 million (USD 104,000), Customs said that MVR 5.6 million (USD 364,000) is due as import duty.
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