Today the 7NEWS team was called out to witness a contraband destruction. It's not quite the kind of contraband that drives Barry Bowen crazy, that kind is usually "destroyed" on ice.....this one, was by fire...here's more.
What you see here are 130 boxes of Montana cigarettes, that's about 3.1 million cigarettes with a retail value of half a million Belize dollars. They were destroyed today by the Customs Enforcement Department at a secret location just outside of Belize City. The Montana brand is the product of British American tobacco, the manufacturers of Benson and Hedges and the second largest cigarette manufacturer in the world. They don't offer Montana cigarettes on the Belize market, but it's a big seller in Mexico. And that's where these cigarettes were headed for.
They were manufactured somewhere in Asia, stamped "Made in Mexico" and then shipped by a company named southeastern international from Port Everglades Florida. It arrived in Belize on June 30th., 2005, and the customs entry was in the name of Mexico Nuevo Company Limited registered in the Corozal Free Zone - but that turned out to be a shadow company.
Customs personnel at the Belize City office inspected it based on profiling and intelligence, because at the Port, they don't normally check containers bound for the zone. Security representatives for the tobacco company who were in the country overseeing the destruction are certain that it was intended for the Mexican market through the Corozal Free Zone. British American Tobacco's local attorney is Rishi Mungal. He says this destruction is good for everyone.
Rishi Mungal, Attorney British Americna Tobacco
"Basically it is anti-counterfeiting procedure. They are some goods, basically half a million dollar in value. They came into Belize, they were destined for the Corozal Free Zone, quite possibly into the Mexican market almost probable to be released into the Belize Market. We represent British America Tobacco who makes these cigarettes in Mexico and these were not real cigarettes, these were basically fake counterfeit cigarettes. They are basically counterfeit cigarettes. Counterfeits don't really provide assistance to anyone. It places an inferior product in the market, it basically damages the credibility of the persons who do have the real product, and the government loses out in the end and the country loses out in the end because of all these lost revenues."
The burning continued for three hours and finished at 1:00 pm.
Though today's event was sizeable, a knock-off cigarette destruction in June of this year disposed of a far greater volume. In that case one hundred thousand cartons of Phillip Morris's flagship product, Marlboro.
