KUALA LUMPUR: The cigarette box duty stamp stickers will be upgraded with new security features to avoid counterfeiting, said Royal Malaysian Customs (RMC) Department director-general Datuk Seri T Subromaniam.
Without divulging the details of the safety features on the duty stamp stickers, he said that the fine-tuning of the duty stamp stickers would be implemented soon to eradicate the smuggling of cigarette.
“We are in the process of implementing it … which will be far better compared to the duty stamp stickers available currently.
“We are trying to improve the system duty using a new method that has safety characteristics which are difficult to falsify,” he said at a media conference on the performance of RMC in eradicating the smuggling of cigarette and alcohol, here yesterday.
Subromaniam said the stamp duty stickers would have an easy-to-detect feature and RMC was opening tenders to companies to produce the stickers.
Prior to this, the media reported that the smuggling syndicates bought original duty stamp stickers issued by RMC in small quantities before reprinting millions of fake ones.
The fake duty stamp stickers were then stuck on cigarette boxes before they were marketed aimed at indicating that duty had been paid on the cigarettes despite being sold at a minimum price, namely, RM10.
This method is believed to be used by several licensed importers and local brand cigarette distributors aimed at convincing almost 70,000 retailers nationwide to sell their products. – Bernama
