From: Daily Telegraph (Australia)
Lachlan Thompson and Rosaline Walters
- Cigarette smuggling on the rise, one in eight cigarettes smuggled
- Areas with large migrant populations are prime markets for the trade
- Some smuggled cigarettes contain ‘mould, faeces and even asbestos’
- 500,000 cigarettes and $1m in cash seized in recent raids
IT IS emerging as one of the most lucrative illegal trades on the streets of Sydney’s southwest, but it’s not drug dealing or car boosting — it’s smuggling cigarettes.
Last month, in seven raids across Fairfield and Bankstown, police seized more than 500,000 smuggled cigarettes and $1 million cash.
Detective Superintendent Murray Chapman, from the NSW Property Crime Squad, said illicit cigarettes were usually made in South-East Asian factories before being smuggled into Australia and sold in legitimate businesses.
“We have been made aware of cases where fake cigarettes have been found to contain mould, faeces and even asbestos,” Supt Chapman said.
