A 22-year-old man has been arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) with a stock of foreign cigarettes allegedly smuggled into Sri Lanka, the Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB) said.
Officers attached to the PNB’s Katunayake Airport Sub-Unit carried out the operation at the airport’s arrival terminal on Saturday, acting on information received beforehand.
54 cartons seized
The suspect was found with 54 cartons containing 10,800 sticks of foreign cigarettes, which police allege were brought into the country illegally. He is a resident of the Uhumiya area, police said.
The PNB Airport Unit is conducting further investigations into the incident. No details have been released on the brand of the cigarettes, the flight the suspect arrived on, or the assessed value of the seizure.
A recurring detection
Cigarette smuggling through passenger baggage at Katunayake has produced repeated detections. Sri Lanka Customs previously reported seizures worth Rs 507 million involving cigarettes and bedsheets in a separate set of cases.
