Customs Busts Six Illicit Cigarette Warehouses in One Day
HK01 · 1 SOURCESabout 2 hours ago2 MIN
Summary
Hong Kong Customs said it carried out six raids in one day and arrested eight people in operations targeting illicit cigarette storage and export activity. In one strand of the case, officers traced a shipment from a logistics yard in Chek Lap Kok to an industrial building unit in Tsuen Wan, seizing about 2.36 million suspected duty-not-paid cigarettes and arresting three men. In another operation, officers raided a tin-sheet yard in the Hung Shui Kiu area of Yuen Long and found about 4.68 million suspected illicit cigarettes that had been repackaged, arresting one transport worker there. Customs said it believed it had dismantled an illicit cigarette smuggling chain at source and was still tracing the goods' origin and destination
Key Points
- At about noon on September 1, Customs officers launched a raid at a logistics yard in Chek Lap Kok and detained two mainland Chinese men near suspicious cigarette cartons
- A search at the Chek Lap Kok site uncovered about 1.6 million suspected duty-not-paid cigarettes; the two arrested men were aged 40 and 30 and reported unemployed
- Follow-up investigation led officers to a unit in an industrial building in Tsuen Wan, believed to be a storage and packaging centre for repackaging cigarettes for export
- Customs seized another 760,000 suspected illicit cigarettes in Tsuen Wan and arrested a 34-year-old local man who said he was a driver
- In a separate afternoon operation in Hung Shui Kiu, Yuen Long, officers found about 4.68 million suspected illicit cigarettes in a concealed 4,000-square-foot tin-sheet yard and arrested a 57-year-old transport worker
Why It Matters
The case points to how illicit cigarette operations can use logistics sites, industrial units and remote yards to repackage goods for export and possibly local distribution, complicating enforcement work. Customs said some of the cigarettes might have entered the Hong Kong market, while others were suspected of being destined for higher-tobacco-tax jurisdictions to profit from price differences. The department said it would continue targeting smuggling, storage, distribution and street-level sales to protect government revenue