Millions of rand worth of illegal goods were confiscated in several joint operations conducted through co-ordinated efforts in the SA Revenue Service (Sars) in the past month.
One of the operations took place on Tuesday and related to the prevention and detection of cross-border smuggling and non-compliance with customs and excise in the cigarette and tobacco industry.
“Sars enforcement teams deployed to the East Rand in Gauteng and supported by the police found a truck offloading raw tobacco, allegedly imported from Zimbabwe, at a warehouse. The team also found a substantial number of boxes with raw tobacco, which had been previously delivered to the warehouse,” Sars said in a statement.
Sars said it was established that the tobacco, which was destined for a bonded warehouse, had been illegally diverted to an unregistered warehouse. This is in contravention of the Customs and Excise Act. A bonded warehouse is a customs-controlled warehouse for the retention of imported goods until the duty owed is paid.
Sars said the enforcement teams conducted a full inspection and took a number of goods for further investigation. These were 472 boxes of raw tobacco with a customs value of R10.9m, including duties and VAT, and the truck transporting the raw tobacco boxes to the value of R2.5m.
Two suspects were arrested.
In another operation on Sunday, a customs officer stationed at Kopfontein border post conducted an inspection of a truck that entered the country from Botswana.
“The officer noticed some irregularities and instructed the driver to open the wooden compartment. Eighteen men were hiding in the false compartment underneath the trailer.
“It is suspected that the men were from Malawi and were trying to enter illegally. The case was referred to the department of home affairs and the police.”
On September 29, enforcement teams in Sars conducted an operation with police in Johannesburg, focusing on suspected smuggled clothing, textiles, leather and footwear (CTFL) goods.
“This joint intervention resulted in 10 detentions of CTFL goods suspected to have been smuggled into the country, with possible intellectual property rights infringements.
