Rise in cigarette smuggling in 2024: customs - RTHK
A A A
Temperature Humidity
News Archive Can search within past 12 months

Rise in cigarette smuggling in 2024: customs

2025-02-18 HKT 14:33
Share this story facebook
Cigarette smuggling accounted for around 68 percent of the total number of cases the Customs and Excise Department worked on last year, according to customs officers.

The department handled more than 31,000 cases in 2024, which was a 63 percent increase from 2023.

It said cigarette smuggling increased 80 percent last year.

Customs commissioner Chan Tsz-tat on Tuesday said the numbers were due to the increased tobacco tax over the past two years.

"The duty rates of cigarettes has increased from HK$1.9 to HK$3.3 per stick over the past two years. Inevitably, this would add the incentive to smugglers as well as incoming passengers to bring in excessive duty-free cigarettes," he said.

He added the department had cracked 40 large-scale cigarette smuggling cases in 2024, similar to 2023, but the number of cigarettes seized dropped 33 percent to around 600 million sticks.

Chan said the drop was due to syndicates decreasing the number of cigarettes being smuggled out at any one time and using differenct smuggling methods in order to reduce losses if smuggled products were seized.

Meanwhile, customs officers seized 6.3 tonnes of drugs and arrested 366 people last year in connection with these seizures.

Among them, 19 cases involved the import of space oil drugs.

Customs said it has stepped up its actions following the classification of etomidate, the key ingredient of the space oil drug, as a dangerous drug last Friday.

"We have strengthened our enforcement covering the whole supply chain, including import and export, distribution and retail, and to crack down on their supply," Chan said.

"The department has also enhanced intelligence analysis and risk management so as to ensure precise cargo and passenger selections. Etomidate has been added to the database of our Raman spectrometers to enhance detection on the front line," he added.

Rise in cigarette smuggling in 2024: customs