SINGAPORE, Oct 1 – Singapore authorities seized 7,559 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes from two Malaysia-registered lorries at the Tuas Checkpoint on September 28.

In a statement here, the republic’s Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said three male Malaysians aged 22, 25 and 41 years old, have been handed over to Singapore Customs for further investigations.

The ICA said the first case was detected at around 4.00am when its officers noticed anomalies in the scanned images of the lorry.

Upon further checks, 5,059 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes were found hidden in a consignment of tissue rolls.

About 10 minutes later, another lorry was directed by ICA officers for further checks and 2,500 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes were found hidden in boxes containing pineapples.

The total duty and Goods and Services Tax (GST) evaded amounted to about US$656,299 and US$52,981 (RM2.7 million and RM219,950) respectively, it said. — Bernama