Foreign woman to spend six months behind bars for possessing contraband cigarettes

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BINTULU: A foreign woman will have to spend six months in a prison at Lambir Miri after she was convicted of possessing prohibited goods, an offence under Section 135(1)(d) of the Customs Act 1967 yesterday.

The accused, Siti Anisa Mayasari was earlier ordered to pay a fine of RM100,000 in default six months imprisonment by Magistrate Muhammad Hafiz Mohd Noor.

She could not pay the fine.

The court heard that on January 8, at about 1.43pm, a group of Customs enforcement officers led by senior custom officer Joseph Richard Michael Ruda examined a vehicle in front of a budget hotel along Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi driven by a local man with the accused as a passenger.

Upon checking the said vehicle, the party found cartons of cigarettes suspected to be contraband without any tax stamp affixed on each packets as required under Item 1, Third Schedule (Part 2) Customs Order (Prohibition of Import) 2012.

The goods were subsequently seized for further investigation and brought to the Customs enforcement office Bintulu for safekeeping. Investigation revealed that the accused failed to prove that the customs duty on the seized goods had been paid.

The cigarettes were valued at RM530 with import duty leviable under the law amounting to RM1,504.

Assistant director of Customs Nasaruddin Shebli prosecuted the case.