‘Must get the leader’: 4,500 cartons of cigarettes hidden under concrete piles in lorry seized at Tuas

SINGAPORE: ICA officers at Tuas Checkpoint have foiled another cigarette smuggling attempt, seizing 4,500 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes concealed beneath a consignment of concrete piles in a Malaysia-registered lorry on September 4, 2026.

Officers detected anomalies in the screened images and directed the lorry for enhanced physical checks, leading to the discovery of the cigarettes hidden underneath the heavy cargo. The 26-year-old male Malaysian driver was arrested and referred to Singapore Customs along with the seized exhibits for further investigation.

ICA’s post, titled “Concrete Proof,” nodded to the concealment method, which used a load of concrete piles to bury the cigarettes beneath what appeared to be a routine construction materials delivery.

Netizens react

The seizure drew a mix of praise and pointed commentary on the economics driving such attempts.

“Job well done, officers!” one commenter wrote.

Another directed attention toward the supply chain behind individual couriers: “Must get the leader”, reflecting a common sentiment that arresting drivers alone does not dismantle the syndicates organising the smuggling runs.

One commenter offered an unusually candid economic analysis of why lorry drivers take the risk: “Truck drivers like this are usually single and don’t have a house; they sleep in the truck. If they are paid RM3,000 (S$934) per trip, it’s worth it for them. If they get caught, they can’t pay the fine, so they prefer to sit in jail for a year and eat for free.”

Another commenter pointed to tobacco taxation as the root cause: “The effect of over-taxed tobacco”

At 4,500 cartons, this seizure ranks among the larger single-vehicle cigarette hauls at Singapore's land checkpoints in recent months, which was only behind the record 12,800-carton wooden crates bust at Tuas in July, but comparable in scale to several other significant seizures.

The use of concrete piles as concealment adds to a growing list of cargo types that have been used to hide cigarettes, including bread consignments, corrugated paper boxes, tube ice cargo, and vehicle floorboards.