By Malai FadleyRizal
A 41-year-old foreigner was fined
$500 in default one-month jail by the Magistrates' Court
yesterday for having in his possession six cartons of contraband
cigarettes worth $84.
Iqbal Marican had bought the
bootleg goods from a supplier named Awg Jasini even though he
was aware that it was an offence to possess cigarettes that do
not have the Brunei government's health warning written on its
packages. This was revealed in the statement of facts by the
Customs Prosecuting Officer, ASC Hj Ahmad Hj Abd Rahman.
It was also stated that the
discovery was a result of a raid made by a team of officers from
the Customs Preventive led by ASC Awg Hj Besar onto a retail
shop situated in Kg Junjungan at Jalan Limau Manis.
Meanwhile in a similar case,
Asep Khaerudin, 22, was to serve a two-month imprisonment
sentence if he failed to pay a $1,500 fine for possessing twenty
cartons of cigarettes without the written Brunei health warning.
According to the statement of
facts, ASC Hj Morshidi and his team of Customs Preventive
officers conducted a raid upon public tip-off onto Asep's
residence at Jalan Singa Menteri in Kuala Belait.
They found $202 worth of
different brands of cigarettes in Asep's room and immediately
questioned the culprit. He said that the cigarettes were for
personal consumption and the rest to be sold at $1.50 per packet
as he obtained it from a supplier named Sani in Miri who sold
them to him at a cheap price.
All of the cigarettes were
forfeited and ordered by the Magistrate to be destroyed by the
relevant authorities.
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