Customs officers at Bandaranaike International Airport have arrested a passenger who allegedly attempted to smuggle foreign-manufactured cigarettes worth about Rs. 4.65 million into the country.
The suspect is a 43-year-old businessman from Marawila, Chilaw, Ada Derana reported. He arrived at the airport at around 10.00 a.m. on Thursday (30) aboard Emirates flight EK-650 from Dubai.
He had attempted to leave the terminal through the Green Channel, the lane reserved for passengers with nothing to declare, while carrying the undeclared consignment. On inspection of his two pieces of luggage, officers found 155 cartons containing a total of 31,000 cigarette sticks, which had been concealed.
Airport Customs officials have taken the suspect into custody and are continuing investigations.
Context
Cigarette smuggling through BIA has been one of the most consistently detected offences at the airport this year, driven by the wide gap between duty-paid local prices and the cost of cigarettes bought abroad. Sri Lanka applies high excise duties on tobacco, and passengers face a strict personal allowance, making undeclared cartons in checked or carry-on baggage a recurring target for Customs.
The Green Channel is a standing point of enforcement: choosing it amounts to a declaration that the passenger carries nothing dutiable, so a concealed consignment found there strengthens the case against the traveller.
Recent detections have followed a similar pattern. A Marawila man was arrested at BIA in June with 26,600 cigarette sticks, and separate cases this month involved a Malaysian national and a Chinese national. Customs also seized a far larger consignment of Chinese cigarettes worth Rs. 450 million from a cold storage facility in mid-July.
Research published this month by Verite Research estimated the revenue lost to illicit cigarettes at around Rs. 25 billion a year.
The allegation against the suspect has not been tested in court.
