Published : 12 Nov 2026, 10:47 AM
Updated : 12 Nov 2026, 10:47 AM
Customs intelligence has seized a consignment of seven cigarette-making and packing machines brought into Chittagong Port as packing and wrapping machines.
The Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) announced the seizure in a media statement on Thursday. It had impounded the consignment on Wednesday.
CIID’s examination found an HPL 225 cigarette maker, HPL packer, HPL feeder, HPL gluing machine, CP1 cigarette pack wrapping machine, SASIB boxer cigarette packing machine and a cigarette film or cellophane overwrapper.
Besides packing equipment, the consignment holds the core cigarette-making machine. CIID said the machines could have been used to run an entire cigarette factory.
An importer based in Dhaka’s Mirpur brought the consignment from Ali Industries Limited of the United Arab Emirates.
The bill of entry filed at Chattogram Custom House declared the goods as a “BNC packing line machine set”, using the HS code for packing and wrapping machines.
The final assessable value and applicable duty and taxes can be set only after checking the declared price against the machines’ model, age, condition and comparable import prices, CIID said.
According to a CIID fact sheet, the exporter’s main business is tobacco production and supplying tobacco industry machinery.
The directorate said cigarette-making machines should be imported only through the country’s roughly 29 cigarette manufacturers or their authorised suppliers.
Importing and using machinery in this way risks counterfeit production of well-known brands and cigarettes from top taxpayers, it said. Consumers could be deceived, legitimate producers could lose business and the government could lose revenue.
The incident establishes the use of a false declaration to bring in a cigarette production line under the guise of packing machinery, CIID said.
The accuracy of the import, classification, actual value, applicable duty and taxes and final use of the machinery will be announced after a detailed investigation, it added.
