Jailed 42 months and fined $10.416 million for duty-unpaid cigarettes
For repeatedly dealing with illegal duty-unpaid cigarettes, Raymond Soh Tian Khoon, 53, was sentenced by the State Courts yesterday to 42 months' imprisonment and a fine of $10.416 million.
He will serve another 28 months' of imprisonment in default for not paying the fines.
On April 12, 2017, Singapore Customs officers conducted an operation at an industrial building in Bukit Batok Street 23. They found and seized a total of 3,948 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes, a Singapore-registered truck, and two Malaysia-registered cars.
Then, Soh and five other men were arrested for dealing with duty-unpaid cigarettes.
The total duty and Goods and Services Tax (GST) evaded amounted to about $323,120 and $23,850 respectively.
Investigations later revealed that Soh had engaged one of the men to drive a truck loaded with duty-unpaid cigarettes to the same industrial building.
Soh had texted the details of the delivery location to another man, who together with another three men, went to the location to collect the duty-unpaid cigarettes.
The cigarettes were to be loaded into the two Malaysian-registered cars for distribution to various locations in Singapore.
The five men arrested have been sentenced by the State Courts to between eight and 39 months' imprisonment.
PREVIOUS CONVICTION
Soh was previously convicted on Oct 17, 2006, for delivering 200 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes.
He was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment.
In 2012, he was again caught for delivering 850 cartons of cigarettes. While out on bail, Soh was caught again in 2013 for importing 90 cartons and 604 packets of cigarettes.
For the offences in 2012 and 2013, he was convicted on Feb 12, 2014.
He was jailed 14 months and fined $352,000. Soh did not pay the court fine, so he served another six months' of imprisonment in default.
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