$40m up in smoke

CUSTOMS officials last week had more than two million sticks of cigarettes smuggled into the island destroyed in their continued campaign to cut off the supply chain of this lucrative trade.

The cigarettes, the Observer was told, had an estimated street value of more than $40 million.

The Observer was unable to get details of the operation, and Customs Commissioner Danville Walker could not be contacted for comment. However, the operation is a continuation of the Customs Department's drive against this illegal activity which is said to earn hundreds of millions of dollars for smugglers.

Essentially, the illicit cigarettes are brought into the island without the required taxes, such as customs duty and the Special Consumption Tax on cigarettes, being paid.

The practice is a breach of the Trademarks Act and Copyright Act (in cases where the illicit cigarettes are a counterfeit of a legitimate brand). It also deprives the National Health Fund of revenue.

In December 2008, Walker, who at the time was new at Customs, warned cigarette smugglers to stop the practice or face the consequences when caught.

"This cannot be seen as a trivial issue anymore; only Petrojam and one other company pay more duties to the Government than the cigarette industry," Walker told journalists at a press briefing at the Customs Department's Newport East offices in Kingston. "We see cigarettes as a high-revenue item for the Government, therefore we are going to be allocating more resources to stop this trade."

Walker said that a number of field operations in search of contraband had yielded huge finds in the Corporate Area and western Jamaica. Two operations, during which 20 locations were searched, yielded 217 cases of Marlboro cigarettes; 130 cases of More cigarettes; 90 cases of Benson and Hedges; 143 cases of Rothmans-King Size; 178 cases of the Newport brand; 21 cases of Craven A; nine sticks of cigars; 42 cases of tobacco and 21 (1-litre) bottles of J Wray and Nephew White Overproof Rum.

However, Walker also raised concern about the possibility of illegal arms and drugs being brought into the country by cigarette traffickers.

"These cigarettes are smuggled into Jamaica; they are not brought in and duty paid on them, and if you can smuggle in a case of cigarettes, then just think what else can be in that case," he said at the time.

"Bringing in these create a supply chain into the country that is subversive to Customs and these supply chains, once developed, can be used to bring in guns, drugs and ammunition," Walker said. "It's not just about cigarettes, it's about cutting off the supply chain of an illegal product or contraband into the country, because once the supply chain is established, you can't stop it."

Currently there are only two authorised distributors of cigarettes in Jamaica -- Carreras Limited, marketer and distributor of the Craven "A", Matterhorn, Dunhill and Rothmans brands of cigarettes and Musson Jamaica Limited, marketer and distributor of the Marlboro and Green brands of cigarettes.

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