Over 204 million illegal cigarettes worth Rs 15 billion nabbed by Sri Lanka Customs were destroyed at the Muthurajawela Power Plant yesterday (15).
This consignment of cigarettes was destroyed under the supervision of Finance State Minister Ranjith Siyabalapitiya, Customs Director General Sarath Nonis and the officers of the Sri Lanka Tobacco Company.
Customs took steps to confiscate this stock of counterfeit cigarettes, which were brought to the country by three companies in 21 containers in 2021.
Sri Lanka Customs officials said that this is the world’s largest stock of counterfeit cigarette and the government would have lost an amount of Rs.13,000 million in taxes if the Customs failed to arrest this illegal cigarette stock.
According to the Customs, the individuals, institutions, wharf clerks, shipping agents and persons posing as importers involved in this illegal smuggling were discovered during Customs inspections and fines of over Rs.2.5 million were imposed on all those parties as per the Customs Ordinance.