673 Bottles & 30 Jerry Cans of Contraband Liquor Seized by Spore Customs

I’m sure everyone already knows that Singapore has strict regulations on smuggling goods across customs. After all, we have been seeing many news reports of such cases and people getting arrested for it.

People would be smuggling pets in their pants, cigarettes, drugs in baked goods, etcetera.

Despite this, there are still a number of people who believe that they would never be caught because they are very careful in doing such activities.

And of course, before they know it, they are caught red-handed and arrested.

673 Bottles & 30 Jerry Cans of Contraband Liquor Seized by Spore Customs

On 6 August, officers came across a Singapore-registered car at a carpark near Bedok North Street 2. Upon inspection, they managed to find 60 bottles of contraband liquor in the boot of the car.

That’s suspicious.

The authorities then headed to the 42-year-old Chinese national driver’s house in Canberra Road and found another 300 bottles of contraband liquor.

Clearly, there was more to this. How else would he be getting so many bottles of liquor?

So the authorities continued searching on that day, and their investigations proved to be successful because it led them to an industrial unit at Woodlands East Industrial Estate where the liquor was allegedly produced.

They had struck gold.

There, they found 313 bottles, 34 jerry cans, and two pails of liquor.

Since the industrial unit was a factory for liquor production, authorities found an alcohol meter, measuring equipment, aluminium chamber, and water tanks. All equipment that was used to produce the alcohol, the Singapore-registered car, along with a total of 673 bottles, 34 jerry cans, two pails of illegally produced liquor were seized.

A 47-year-old Chinese national was also present at the industrial unit, and both he and the 42-year-old man were arrested for investigations.

Strict Regulations

As mentioned, Singapore doesn’t take these smuggling activities lightly. So if you are caught in possession or transacting illegal goods, you will be fined up to 40 times the amount of duty and GST evaded under the Customs Act and the GST Act. You will also be sentenced to a jail term of six years.

If you produce dutiable goods or you have the equipment to manufacture dutiable goods without a license, you will be fined S$5,000 and jailed for 18 months under the Customs Act.

So the lesson here is, just don’t try your luck. Just because you think that you may be able to get away with it, doesn’t mean that you definitely will. At the end of the day, the price you pay for doing such activities is way higher than what you will have to pay to obtain the goods legally.

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Featured Image: Facebook (Singapore Customs)