From: Tuoitrenews
Economic police in Hanoi have detained a cigarette smuggler who later confessed that he had smuggled about 30,000 cartons, or 300,000 packs, of foreign cigarettes into the country.
On the evening of January 5, Phan Van Minh, 48, was caught carrying two packages containing 95 cartons of cigarettes (a carton contains 10 packs of cigarettes) on a motorbike to a warehouse owned by the Hanoi Bus Wagon Application Enterprise at 1 Tran Quy Cap Street, Dong Da District, police said.
After failing to show any documents related to the cigarettes, Minh, who is an employee at the enterprise, was detained for investigation.
Based on his testimony, police later searched the warehouse and detected 1,400 other cartons of cigarettes that had been stored there without any documents.
The trademarks of the foreign cigarettes include Capri, Esse, George, Texas 5, Raison, and others.
Minh told investigators that from mid-November 2012 until his arrest, he had carried out many deals, involving about 30,000 cartons of foreign cigarettes.
Minh said he had sold about half of the smuggled cigarettes.
As a train repairer, Minh often transported smuggled foreign cigarettes by train from south to north, investigators said.
