BUTTERWORTH: Out to make a fast buck, smugglers tried to bring in almost 200,000 litres of contraband beer through Port Klang, Selangor, for Chinese New Year.
Most were in 500ml cans with the alcohol content listed from 12% to 16%. Typically, legal beer in Malaysia has only 5% alcohol.
The contraband was shipped in seven containers storing 361,236 cans.
The smugglers tried to hoodwink the authorities by declaring that the containers were filled with aluminium flakes or copper alloy, with one of the containers even declared as a holding cabin.
But the alert Customs Department personnel were up to the task and seized the extra strong beer before it could hit the streets for the festivity.
State Customs director Roselan Ramli said the containers came from an East Asian country, adding that a shipping agent was arrested and the search was on for other suspects.
He said the first operation at 11am on Jan 31 found two containers being declared as holding aluminium flakes. What was inside were 106,560 cans of beer worth RM263,340, with unpaid duties worth 1.71mil.
Roselan said a second operation later at 12.45pm found four more containers declared as holding copper alloy.
Instead, the containers had 202,356 cans of beer worth RM561,541.20 with unpaid duties worth RM3.45mil.
“The third operation at 11.30am on Feb 7 found a container declared as having a cabin but what was inside were 52,320 beer cans worth RM144,000, with duties worth RM1mil evaded,” he told a press conference at the department’s enforcement store in Bagan Jermal here.
In total, the value of the beer worked out to RM968,881.20, with RM6,164,606.58 in unpaid taxes.
