Govt loses over P3m in cigarette smuggling
Sharon Mathala | Friday September 4, 2015 14:46
Recently, the British Tobacco Botswana, in collaboration with the Botswana Police Service embarked on an intelligence led operation on the proliferation of illicit tobacco from neighbouring South Africa. Head of the operation, Deputy Sergeant Hendrik Ralefala told Mmegi this week that the objective of the operation was to suppress a looming worse case scenario of illicit transportation of tobacco and cigarettes from South Africa into Botswana through the Tlokweng boarder.
“This was also done to halt dwindling taxing on tobacco products that our country experiences through illegal means,” he said.
When Mmegi news team visited the Tlokweng boarder post this week, it was business as usual, with people coming in and going out of the country, but Ralefala said, “If you squint your eyes a bit further there is more than what you see on the surface.”
He explained that the perpetrators use different sophisticated methods to smuggle the cigarette consignments into the country. He said that they usually have an inside person, either a Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) officer or a police officer.
“Some of them buy second hand clothing, then buy the huge bags and stuff the cigarettes in between the clothes, and fail to declare the cigarettes, but rather, declare only the clothes.”
He added: “Some of them use these transportation trucks. They have space under the chairs which they use to stack and hide the boxes from suspecting officers. But they usually have an insider and normally crosses the boarder late in the evening,” said the CID officer.
During the operation that lasted three weeks, Tlokweng police say they managed to arrest 32 people involved in evading taxation by smuggling tobacco into the country.
“Twenty two (22) were males and (10)were females. In the group we managed to arrest we had 21 Bangladeshi nationals and 11 Batswana. Calculating the amount lost in the three week operation tallied up to P 141,000. 00,” the CID officer explained.
He said that in one of the arrests they traced the culprits to their home in Phase IV where they recovered 10 boxes of cigarettes. One box contained about 10 cases, which has about nine thousand sticks.The culprits however end up admitting guilt and paying the fine,” said Ralefala.
Ralefala also stated that the five officers, two BURS officials and three officers have been handed to another security agency, the office of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) for further probing.
“The matter is still under investigation and we have handed their names to the DIS for further investigations. Our suspicion is that there are many others like them,” he said.
Over the weekend the police smashed million of pula worth of cigarettes from illicit cross boarder trade after 40 boxes were intercepted at the Tlokweng boarder post. Illicit trade negatively impacts not only the tobacco industry but also government tax revenue.