RM12,000 fags in underground room
by Sandra Sokial. Posted on December 15, 2011, Thursday
KOTA KINABALU: Customs Department personnel discovered to their surprise an underground room where about RM12,000 worth of contraband cigarettes were hidden while they were raiding a house in Kampung Kadazan Kunak.
The two-metre high room, which was built specially to store contraband cigarettes, was discovered after the raiding team had failed to find any cigarettes elsewhere in the house.
In the 2pm raid recently, the team also arrested a man, believed to be the house owner, and seized all the 30 boxes of cigarettes of various brands.
Sabah Acting Customs Director Janathan Kandok, who revealed this yesterday, said they raided the house after receiving a tip-off about contraband cigarettes being stored in the house.
“Based on the information, we dispatched our team from Tawau and here to carry out the raid, but did not find any cigarettes in or around the house.
“However we did not give up and continued searching until our men noticed the floor was a bit loose. They opened it and found an underground room. The contraband goods were hidden in that room,” he told a media conference at the department’s headquarters here. Also present was the department’s deputy director (enforcement), Hamzah Sundang.
“We had done raids on the same house in the past and found only several contraband goods and rice hidden in a nearby forest.
“That is why we could not arrest him as we could not prove the items to be belonging to him. But this time, we were able to nab him as the contraband goods were hidden in an underground room beneath his house,” said Janathan.
He said smugglers would use any tactics to evade arrest.
“Sometimes they would hide contraband goods such as cigarettes or alcoholic drinks in secluded vacant houses or booths to cover their tracks,” he said.
Janathan said a total of 31 people, aged between 20 and 40, were arrested this year through their special operations and contraband goods amounting to some RM370,000 were seized.
“Keningau district tops the list with 14 cases, comprising six cases that involved contraband cigarettes worth around RM70,000 and seven cases involving alcoholic drinks worth around RM110,000,” he said.
“We also seized two vehicles during our operations in Keningau for storing smuggled alcoholic drinks and all cases are investigated under Section 135 of the Customs Act, 1967,” he said.
