Over 200,000 in seized cigarette sticks destroyed

Over 200,000 cigarette sticks in 1,073 cartons seized from incoming airline passengers because they are either illegal or beyond the allowable amount that could be brought into the CNMI are being destroyed by the Division of Customs Services.

Customs director Joe Mafnas said this is only a fraction of the cigarettes that the agency has confiscated the past year.

On Friday, Customs officers started cutting into pieces and then soaking the confiscated cigarettes in water at the Customs seaport where they have been stored for at least a year. Space is running out for storing the seized cigarettes.

Customs officer Antonio Arriola and Customs inspector 1 Vicente “Ben” Teregeyo said that majority of the confiscated cigarettes are from foreign countries such as China, Japan, the Philippines, and Korea.

While some cigarettes are internationally known such as Marlboro, Hope, Philip Morris, Kent, Lucky Strike or Dunhill, some are a bit obscure, among them Yangcheng, Honghe, Lucia, and the like.

Mafnas said they wanted the cigarettes incinerated but that would cost Customs money so they decided to just cut them and soak them in water before turning them in to the Lower Base transfer station and eventually to the Marpi landfill.

“But we underestimated the time it would take to destroy 1,073 cartons of cigarettes. We would continue the destruction [this] week. Cigarettes are intercepted daily at the airport so you can just imagine the volume of cigarettes that need to be destroyed,” Mafnas told Saipan Tribune.

The 1,073 cartons contain a total of 214,600 cigarette sticks.

Mafnas said there is a bill they are trying to work on with the Legislature that would immediately impose fines of $50 to $2,500 on those bringing in more than the allowed number of cigarettes and those bringing in illegal cigarettes including those that do not have English labels and do not have “Surgeon General Warning” on them.

This immediate imposition of fine—and possibly allowing more legal cigarettes to be brought in and taxed—could be a way for the CNMI government to generate additional revenues, Mafnas said.

He said some tourists are willing to pay for the extra cigarettes that they bring in but Customs cannot allow that under the law.

Mafnas said a portion of the fines collected could also go into incinerating illegal cigarettes.