The Australian Border Force (ABF) has seized close to two million cigarettes in Brisbane and arrested four individuals who faced court yesterday. The arrests followed an air freight seizure over the weekend, as the ABF continues to stamp down on criminal syndicates attempting to illegally import tobacco into Australia.
On September 17, an air freight consignment was examined by ABF officers and found to be concealing 1,975,400 cigarettes in boxes falsely declared as dehumidifiers.
Further investigations led to a managed delivery taking place on September 20 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 yesterday and were charged with tobacco smuggling offences under the Customs Act 1901.
ABF Acting Superintendent Robert Ansell said illicit tobacco can be sold at more than 60 times its offshore price, and that the ABF will continue to target, disrupt and dismantle organised crime groups involved in this smuggling.
"Illicit tobacco is an increasingly attractive market to organised criminal syndicates due to the lucrative profits that can be made in evaded tax. The ABF is resolutely focused on disrupting this illegal behaviour," Acting Superintendent Ansell said.
"The profits from illicit tobacco sales are often funnelled back into other organised crime activities including the illicit drug trade. For this reason we are working closely with other law enforcement authorities, both here in Australia and offshore," he said.
The ABF has stopped more than 400 tonnes of illicit tobacco from reaching the black market since its establishment in 2015.
The total duty evaded on the illicit tobacco is estimated at more than $294 million.
In the same period, more than 100 individuals have been charged with tobacco smuggling offences under the Customs Act 1901.
Tobacco smuggling is a criminal offence that denies the Commonwealth legitimate revenue and funds organised crime. The maximum penalty for tobacco smuggling is ten years imprisonment. Pecuniary penalties of up to five times the amount of duty evaded can also be imposed by the courts.
People with information about the importation of illicit tobacco or other illicit goods should contact Border Watch at www.border.gov.au/borderwatch. Information can be provided anonymously.