A new strategy to penalise retailers who sell contraband cigarettes has been employed to curb a growing problem in Malaysia.

Instead of only issuing the retailers with compound notices, the customs department will now arrest them and bring them to court under the ‘Ops Outlet’ programme that was launched in February. "Only a few cases were brought to court last year, whereas in the first two months of this year, more than 100 cases have been brought to court," said the department’s deputy director-general Datuk Mohamed Khalid Yusuf. Retailers who sell contraband cigarettes will be fined ten times the value of cigarettes seized from them upon conviction. "Currently in Peninsular Malaysia, one out of three cigarette packs sold in the market is illegal, whereas in Sabah and Sarawak, two out of three cigarette packs sold in the market are illegal," Khalid said. He added that the new strategy was aimed at breaking the supply chain of this growing smuggling industry. The department believed that smokers would not buy contraband cigarettes if they were not easily available in the market. The department seized contraband cigarettes with a market value of MYR 70 million (EUR 16 million) in 2009, an increase of about MYR 12 million (EUR 2.75 million) compared to 2008. In the first two months of 2010, contraband cigarettes worth MYR 17 million (EUR 3.98 million) were confiscated. Most of the cigarettes were smuggled from neighbouring countries and are imitation products made in China. (sra)