Luxury car smuggling foiled

Luxury car smuggling foiled

JAKARTA: The Customs and Excise office had foiled the
smuggling of four Mercedes Benz vehicles into the country, an
officer said on Friday.

Director General of Customs and Excise Permana Agung said the
luxury cars, shipped by the MV Kota Maju from Singapore, arrived
in Tanjung Priok on Sunday.

The importer, identified as PT RMC, had allegedly forged the
import documents by claiming it was importing 29,200 kgs of raw
materials for industrial use.

However, the customs and excise officers became suspicious
about the address provided by PT RMC in Jakarta, which they
considered unconvincing. They checked the containers using X-ray
machines, and discovered four Mercedez Benz vehicles, three of
them S-320 models and the other an E-320 model.

Permana said that the cars had cost US$160,000 in Singapore,
and were subject to an import tax of about Rp 3.2 billion
($320,000).

The address PT RMC had provided in the document was
residential and the owner of the house knew nothing about the
cars, Permana said.--Antara