On Sunday, an airfreight consignment was examined by Australian Border Force (ABF) officers after arriving into Brisbane. There were allegedly 1,975,400 cigarettes in boxes inside, that had been falsely declared as dehumidifiers. The cargo had been shipped from Korea. A further delivery took place on Wednesday at a storage facility in a South Brisbane suburb, where four adults, three men and one woman, were arrested. The group faced Cleveland Magistrates Court and was charged with tobacco smuggling offences under the Customs Act 1901.
ABF Acting Superintendent Robert Ansell said illicit tobacco can be sold at more than sixty times its offshore price, and the profits are then often channelled back into other organised crime activities – including the illicit drug trade.
The ABF has stopped more than four hundred tonnes of illegally imported cigarettes and tobacco from reaching the black market since its establishment in 2015, with the total duty evaded being estimated at more than $294 million. In the same period, more than a hundred individuals have been charged with tobacco smuggling offences under the Customs Act.
Tobacco smuggling is a criminal offence that denies the Commonwealth legitimate revenue while funding organised crime. For this reason the ABF is working closely with other law enforcement authorities, both in Australia and offshore. The maximum penalty for those caught is ten years imprisonment. Pecuniary penalties of up to five times the amount of duty evaded can also be imposed by the courts.
