The Director General Of Customs And Excise Has Taken Action Against 11 Million Illegal Cigarettes From China

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Finance's Director General of Customs and Excise, Askolani, said he had taken action against 11 million illegal cigarettes from China.

"We have also taken action against cigarettes from China with more than 11 million cigarettes with the potential for losses of up to Rp. 17 billion if we don't act," said Askolani at the Commission XI Hearing Meeting of the DPR RI, Antara, Monday, April 4.

According to him, the Indonesian people consume cigarettes from China which are quite popular as many as 2.5 million sticks with a value of Rp. 2.6 billion in 2022.

"So we combine. They have to be legal, but then we still face illegal actions in the field, so those two things are challenges that we are dealing with consistently," he said.

Not only cigarettes from China, Luffman cigarettes from Vietnam also entered Indonesia quite a lot. The government through the Director General of Customs and Law Enforcement (APH) will continue to work together to crack down on goods smuggled into Indonesia and illegal goods.

According to him, this cooperation is needed to secure Indonesian territory, especially waters that require many ships and human resources.

"We can't carry out mobile patrols but there are no results. Because we all know that patrols are quite expensive, so we need to be smarter in using intelligence data," he said.

The intelligence data is then used as the basis for surveillance, monitoring and action in the field.

"With that we target which ships we will capture. We get a lot of intelligence sources which we then use to be able to take more effective steps to prevent," he said.