Man gets five months for smuggling cigarettes

A mainland man has been sentenced to five months in prison and fined HK$1,000 for failing to declare large quantities of cigarettes after he arrived on a flight on Thursday.

West Kowloon Magistrates' Court passed sentence on the 35-year-old a day after he had been stopped by Customs at Hong Kong International Airport. There, officers had found about 28,400 duty-not-paid cigarettes in his personal baggage.

Customs said the cigarettes had a market value of about HK$142,000 and a potential duty of about HK$93,800.

Customs welcomed the sentence, saying it imposed a considerable deterrent.

Edited by Robert Kemp ...