Mohd Nasir (second right) and his senior officers with the seized items.
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Customs seized more than RM1.3mil worth of contraband cigarettes found in an abandoned lorry in the interior Tenom district.
Acting on a tip-off, a team from the Keningau Customs office located the lorry at KM40 off Jalan Tenom–Sipitang, Tenom, at about 6am on March 16.
Sabah Customs assistant director-general Datuk Mohd Nasir Deraman said the team found 100,000 cartons containing two million cigarettes.
“We found the cigarettes, estimated to weigh some 1,920kg, in the lorry that was abandoned on the roadside,” he said at the Keningau Customs office on Sunday (March 24).
“The cigarettes are valued at RM160,000, with unpaid duty worth RM1,336,000,” he said, adding that together with the lorry, the seized items were valued at over RM1.5mil.
He added that they did not find anyone in the vehicle.
“We believe the driver escaped after noticing Customs’ presence,” Mohd Nasir said.
He said the smugglers attempted to sneak in the cigarettes during the wee hours on weekends to avoid detection by the authorities.
“We are tracking down the smugglers,” he said, adding that the case was being investigated under Section 135(1)(e) of the Customs Act 1967.
