A National Security Bureau (NSB) official accompanying President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on a state visit to the Caribbean was arrested after allegedly trying to smuggle 9,200 cartons of cigarettes worth more than US$200,000 into Taiwan, New Power Party Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said yesterday.
Wu Tsung-hsien (吳宗憲) allegedly ordered the cigarettes through China Airlines Ltd’s (CAL, 中華航空) online duty-free store with the help of airline officials on July 8, three days before embarking on the trip, Huang said.
The cigarettes include 4,400 cartons of Mevius Original Blue, 1,900 cartons of Movies Sky Blue and 1,200 cartons of Mi-Ne Original, priced from US$16 to US$30 per carton, he said.
Photo: CNA
In Taiwan, Mevius cigarettes sell for about NT$1,200 per carton, he added.
The cigarettes, purchased through five orders totaling US$208,350, were paid by Wu using one credit card, Huang said.
Under customs laws, only certified sellers can import more than five cartons of cigarettes and any amount of cigarettes that exceed one carton must be taxed, he added.
The cigarettes were allegedly hidden in CAL’s storage facility for duty-free goods and after Tsai’s airplane landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, they were placed with cargo unloaded from the airplane to avoid customs inspections, he said.
Huang quoted bureau Deputy Director-General Hu Mu-yuan (胡木源) as saying that Wu was arrested before he passed through customs at the airport.
Wu is an official at the Presidential Office’s Department of Security Affairs and denied that the cigarettes were for bureau members, Huang said, quoting Hu.
“A logical guess would be that the cigarettes were for sale. I do not believe they were all for personal use,” Huang said.
Officials who would sell out for just a few million New Taiwan dollars are not qualified to work at the bureau, Huang said, adding that the bureau and the airline owe the public an explanation.
The Presidential Office last night issued a statement saying that Tsai was enraged by the incident and demanded that the case be thoroughly investigated, adding that she has accepted National Security Bureau Director-General Peng Sheng-chu’s (彭勝竹) resignation.
The bureau said it has launched a probe, declining to provide details, citing an ongoing investigation.
CAL in a statement denied that the airline management helped Wu purchase the cigarettes.
“We cannot stop passengers from buying cigarettes exceeding the limit set by customs, although we would normally give them a reminder. It is the passenger’s responsibility to make a customs declaration,” CAL spokesman Jason Liu (劉朝洋) said.
CAL stored the cigarettes in its bonded warehouse, as Wu had paid for them, but the airline did not know whether he had declared them to customs, Liu said.
The Customs Administration yesterday said that 196 boxes, or 9,800 cartons, of cigarettes were stored in a warehouse belonging to China Pacific Catering Services Ltd (華膳空廚) and were not loaded on a chartered airplane used in Tsai’s state visit.
A task force it formed with the Investigation Bureau took the cigarettes to the Taipei Customs warehouse and did not allow them to go through customs clearance through the use of special procedures for national guests, the agency said in a statement.
Additional reporting by Kao Shih-ching, staff writer and CNA
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