'Largest Ever' Smuggling of 17 Billion Domestic Cigarettes for Export Detected

Employees of the Foreign Affairs Division at Incheon Maritime Police Station are inspecting export-only domestic cigarettes seized from a smuggling organization. January 5, 2022 [Photo by Incheon Maritime Police Station]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] A group smuggling the largest ever amount of export-only domestic cigarettes has been caught by the Coast Guard.

Incheon Coast Guard announced on the 5th that they arrested the mastermind A (49) on charges of violating the Customs Act under the Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes and booked six others including smuggling organizer B (51) without detention. The group concealed export-only domestic cigarettes worth 17 billion KRW on a regular cargo ship traveling between China and Incheon Port and smuggled them in.

A and others are accused of smuggling 3,617,500 cartons of export-only cigarettes worth 17 billion KRW made in Korea through cargo ships traveling between Incheon Port and Shandong Province's Qingdao Port in China ten times from May to July last year.

The cigarettes smuggled into Korea are export-only products that do not display warning images and texts as required by the National Health Promotion Act, making them illegal for distribution domestically.

A and others are logistics industry workers including cargo owners, transport companies, and forwarding agents (agents handling international transport-related tasks on behalf of cargo owners). They repurchased export-only domestic cigarettes sold in Thailand and Hong Kong through Chinese intermediaries.

They then falsely declared the products as legitimate imports to domestic customs and smuggled them hidden inside less-than-container load (LCL) containers carrying multiple cargo owners' goods together. They used a so-called 'curtain method,' loading legitimate products on the outside of the container and hiding cigarettes inside.

It was investigated that they sold the smuggled cigarettes, imported at about 1,700 KRW per carton, to market retailers in Seoul, Busan, and other areas at 3,500 KRW, earning profits of over 6.5 billion KRW.

The Coast Guard estimated that if the smuggled cigarettes had been legally distributed in the market, the tax revenue for the state would have reached 8.3 billion KRW.

An official from Incheon Coast Guard said, "This is the first case of completely dismantling an organization specializing in cigarette smuggling at Incheon Port, and it is the largest scale among single cases detected so far," adding, "We will continue to strengthen management and surveillance activities on various maritime routes to prevent smuggling."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.