The Macau Customs Service (SA) busted on Wednesday afternoon a shop on Rua do Bocage in the Praça de Ponte e Horta neighbourhood selling illicit cigarettes, seizing about 434,000 sticks of illicit cigarettes worth 220,000 patacas, involving 651,300 patacas in unpaid tobacco duty.
Senior customs officer Ip Lap Pun said during a joint press conference with the Judiciary Police (PJ) yesterday at the PJ headquarters in Zape that after notification by the Judiciary Police on Wednesday afternoon about an illicit cigarette trade in a shop on Rua do Bocage, customs officers were dispatched to the scene, where they caught the shop’s owner, a female local resident, aged 64.
In the operation, according to Ip, the officers found a total of 434,200 sticks of illicit cigarettes in a flat on the second floor of a residential building on Rua do Bocage, while no unauthorised items were found in the ground floor shop.
Under questioning, the suspect admitted that starting from 2021, she had repeatedly purchased illicit cigarettes from an “unknown” person at her shop and stored them in the flat, then resold them in batches from the ground floor shop, Ip said.
Ip noted that since 2021, the Macau Customs Service has taken enforcement action against the suspect’s shop on four occasions, and a total of 330,000 illicit cigarettes involving 500,000 patacas in unpaid tobacco duty were seized.
The suspect could face a fine of up to 100,000 patacas, Ip noted.
Meanwhile, Ip said that the suspect has also been referred to the Health Bureau (SSM) for violating the city’s smoking prevention and control act.
This handout photo provided by the Macau Customs Service yesterday shows illicit cigarettes worth 220,000 patacas, seized from a shop on Rua do Bocage in the Praça de Ponte e Horta neighbourhood.
