Banned foreign cigarettes worth Rs 20 lakh seized; two arrested in Habeeb Nagar

Hyderabad: A huge quantity of banned foreign cigarettes and an auto used to transport them were seized from two persons on Tuesday.

The total worth of the contraband seized was said to be around Rs 20.50 lakh.

The operation was conducted by the sleuths of Commissioner’s Task Force, South West Zone team with Habeeb Nagar Police who raided a warehouse at Afsal Sagar in Agapura Road and apprehended the auto driver and another person and seized the contraband from them.

The accused have been identified as Mohd Imran (42) and Md Ayub (50). Both are residents of Habeeb Nagar.

The seized stock includes 11 gunny bags containing 39,500 packets of Gold Stag cigarettes, three gunny bags of 4,500 packets of Black cigarettes and one bag containing 1,000 packets of Mond cigarettes.

Accused would sell banned cigarettes using auto drivers

Mohd Imran is a native of Nizamabad who migrated to Hyderabad. He has a family business called SN Traders Pan Masala at Aghapura here.

However, over the past few years, the accused has been involved in the illegal business of banned cigarettes. He has connections with Ramesh, a resident of Gujarat and procured foreign-banned cigarettes at a low price through him. He would sell cigarettes in Hyderabad city with the help of auto drivers at a high price, earning money illegally.

Further, it was also found that there are no pictorial warnings on cigarette packets. The accused were dishonestly and fraudulently procuring cigarettes to avoid customs duty and GST which is causing wrongful loss to the government and also cheating gullible people in the guise of original cigarettes.

A case was registered and further investigation is on.