Rs303m smuggled cigarettes seized across country in last 10 days

Personnel of the Pakistan Customs Intelligence have seized smuggled cigarettes worth Rs303 million during a crackdown against smuggled goods over the last 10 days.

Syed Irfan Ali, a spokesman for the customs, said on Friday the personnel of the Intelligence Customs, under the guidance of Chairman FBR Asim Ahmad and the direct supervision of the Director General Customs Intelligence Faiz Ahmad Chadhar, had seized smuggled cigarettes worth Rs303 million during the last 10 days in countrywide operations.

The largest catch was in Balochistan, where officials seized 4,280,000 sticks of foreign brands of cigarettes, valued at Rs114.2 million. In the province of Sindh, eight operations resulted in the seizure of 1,420,700 sticks of high-end brands of cigarettes valued at Rs69.7 million.

Similarly, during intelligence-based operations in Punjab, the Customs Intelligence team seized 1,294,000 sticks of smuggled cigarettes of Rs75.3 million. Likewise, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Customs Intelligence seized 1,155,000 sticks of smuggled cigarettes of Rs43.9 million.

Taken altogether, during the last ten days, the Customs Intelligence has seized 8,149,700 sticks of smuggled cigarettes worth Rs303 million. This takes the tally of seizures of smuggled cigarettes by the Customs Intelligence in 2022-23 to 33,994,850 sticks valued at Rs1324 million. Chairman FBR Asim Ahmad and Director General, Customs Intelligence Faiz Ahmad Chadhar lauded the efforts of the Customs Intelligence of Quetta, Karachi, Multan, Gwadar, Hyderabad, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar.