By: RadhakrishnaNS
Sri Lankan customs officials busted a major smuggling racket and seized more than 200 million sticks of foreign cigarettes hidden in 21 containers with forged documents.
The customs department pegged the value of the seized goods at more than £32.4m.
The containers, labelled ‘Ceylon Black Tea,’ had been shipped from the United Arab Emirates and were marked for re-export to the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, The Islander said on Friday (14) citing unnamed sources in the department.
The compliance and facilitation division of the department, which is investigating the case, found shipping documents of the containers were forged.
A name and address of a Sri Lankan tea company had been mentioned in the documents as the re-exporter, it said.
