THE Jamaica Customs Contraband Enforcement Team (CET) on Saturday seized a container with over 400 cases of illegal cigarettes valued at $120 million destined for St Maarten.

Police could not confirm the identity of the owner of the container, but an industry source told Caribbean Business Report that it belongs to a well-known area leader involved in the import and export trade.

The seizure was made at premises occupied by a construction company, bordered by the Kingston Container Terminals (KCT). Jamaica Customs reported yesterday that the CET acting on intelligence received, executed a search of the premises where they found 75 master cases of cigarettes containing over half-million sticks of the tobacco product.

Further investigations revealed broken seals on a container at KCT waiting to be exported to St Maarten, Customs reported.

A search of the container revealed cigarettes of the same packaging and type and that some boxes were missing. The container, along with the 75 cases of the cigarettes, were subsequently seized by the CET. Customs reported that the Customs Border Protection Unit and the Hunts Bay Police are conducting further investigations into the seizure.

However, yesterday Carreras, the sole legal supplier of cigarette products in Jamaica, said they had no new comments on this the latest seizure of illegal cigarettes.

In an address to the annual conference of the Council of Community Colleges of Jamaica in January this year, Christopher Brown, head of corporate and regulatory affairs at Carreras, said that the increase in taxes on cigarettes is affecting the company’s profits and encouraging the illicit trade in the product.

“I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Government to look again, and examine whether or not some of the measures announced may have threatened the viability of legal business entities such as ourselves, and give a new lease on life to those committed to operate in the illicit trade,” Brown said.

In its third-quarter financial statements dated December 31 2009, Carreras reported a 17.3 per cent reduction in net income in part as a result of the excise-led price increase. The cigarette company was taxed up to 42 per cent by the Government in its 2009/2010 budget, and an additional 23.5 per cent effective January 1, 2010. This has caused a subsequent increase in the price of the legal products locally and a decrease in sales volume, according to the company.

At the time, Carreras said that the company would be working with the Government to “manage illicit trade in cigarettes”.