ALOR GAJAH, May 17 — The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) foiled an attempt to smuggle in 4.27 million kretek (clove) cigarettes of various brands worth RM2.95 million in the waters of Tanjung Sepat, Selangor on Monday (May 15).

MMEA Melaka and Negeri Sembilan director Maritime Captain Iskandar Ishak said the cigarette smuggling syndicate using three speedboats, believed to be from Rupat, Indonesia, were detected as a result of intelligence and information from neighbouring countries in addition to the assistance of the Malaysian Maritime Surveillance System (SWASLA) at about 11.30pm on Sunday (May 14).

He said the boats without registration numbers were spotted moving suspiciously on the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) route to Tanjung Sepat, Selangor before fleeing after realising the presence of MMEA (Maritime) assets in the area.

"The Maritime boats chased the grey boats for almost 20 minutes until they entered a mangrove swamp area and purposely crashed into mangrove trees there.

"The Maritime boats successfully approached and intercepted the boats at a position 0.07 nautical southwest of Kampung Batu Laut in Tanjung Sepat at about 1.30am on Monday,” he said at a press conference here today.

He said the three skippers and the crews of the boats, believed to be foreign nationals, managed to escape by jumping into the sea before entering the nearby mangrove swamp forest.

He added that the high tide, dark and muddy conditions made it difficult for the operation team to locate them, but the boats containing about 400 large boxes of kretek cigarette boxes wrapped in plastic and placed in gunny sacks were successfully confiscated.

Iskandar said preliminary investigations found that the contraband cigarettes were believed to be brought into the country due to high demand, especially for the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor markets.

He said the seizure was believed to be related to a kretek cigarette smuggling syndicate which was busted last April.

"Apart from the kretek cigarettes, we also seized the boats along with six engines of 200 horsepower each, estimated to be worth RM3.15 million in total,” he said. — Bernama