Illegal Cigarettes Still 'Flooding' Garut, Today Customs And Excise Confiscate 160 Thousand Sticks

Officers confiscate illegal cigarettes resulting from operations carried out by the Customs and Excise Office of Intermediate Type C Customs and Excise, Tasikmalaya/ANTARA

TASIKMALAYA - Customs and Excise Service Supervision and Service Office Type C Customs Tasikmalaya together with Satpol PP Garut Regency, West Java confiscated 160,000 cigarettes resulting from operations to eradicate illegal cigarettes circulating in a number of Garut areas.

"In each location we still find a lot of illegal cigarettes, a total of around 160,464 sticks from the four locations," said the First Expert Customs and Excise Examiner Functional at the Customs and Excise Service Supervision and Customs Office Type C Tasikmalaya, Hotmian Simorangkir via broadcast press in Garut, Antara, Friday, August 26.

He said that illegal cigarette eradication operations are routinely carried out by exploring a number of markets in the work area of the Customs and Excise Office of Intermediate Type C, Tasikmalaya, including Garut Regency.

Such operations were carried out with Garut's Satpol PP, he said, by visiting places that were allegedly selling illegal cigarettes, namely in Tarogong, Garut Kota, Kadungora, and Leuwigoong.

"For the activities, it is very satisfying, because the Satpol PP team has already collected information, before we carried out joint market operations," he said.

He conveyed that all the confiscated cigarettes were then taken to the office to be used as evidence until they were finally destroyed. Meanwhile, the cigarette sellers at the location, he said, would undergo an inspection to find out from which area and who the supplier of the illegal cigarettes was.

"Indeed, for East Priangan, especially Garut, this is only from marketing, there is no production, so only sellers, we are still asking for information to ask where the goods came from," he said.

He said similar operations would continue to be carried out in a number of places in Garut because it was suspected that there were still many illegal cigarettes circulating or being traded to the public.

In addition, he continued, he continued to socialize and give warnings not to produce or sell illegal cigarettes because there are criminal threats.

"Most of the sellers don't understand whether it's illegal cigarettes or not, and even if it's because they don't know it, we routinely carry out socialization to explain that illegal cigarettes should not be traded," he said.

Secretary of the Garut Regency Satpol PP Iwan Riswandi added that his staff is ready to carry out operations to eradicate illegal cigarettes in Garut, including socializing to the public about legal and illegal cigarettes.

"Of course there is no clear control over these illegal cigarettes, both in terms of materials and methods of manufacture, so it is likely that this will increase the danger, this is a form of protection for the Satpol PP as well, against the people of Garut Regency," he said.