Bootleggers invade dry Brunei

Bootleggers invade dry Brunei

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (Reuter): Bootleggers are invading the tiny Moslem sultanate of Brunei which maintains a strict ban on alcohol, customs officials said yesterday.

Customs officials have registered 111 cases of alcohol- smuggling in the first half of the year compared with 96 in the whole of last year.

"It's supply and demand," one customs official in the Brunei capital said. "There's a lot of money in it."

Brunei imposed a total ban on alcohol three years ago. "It came as a shock at first, but now (bootleggers) have found ways of getting it in," the official said.

Much of the bootleg liquor comes from Malaysia's offshore tax haven and duty-free port on Labuan island, about 50 kilometers off oil-wealthy Brunei.