Customs report surges in illicit cigarette and smuggled gold cases through 2025

Customs handled more than 38,000 cases last year, marking an increase of about 20 percent year-on-year.

The bulk of them were illicit tobacco-related offences.

A 60-year-old inbound traveller -- found to conceal 201 duty-not-paid cigarettes, or around 10 packs of cigarettes in his trousers.

He was sentenced on Wednesday to four weeks' imprisonment and fined 1,500 dollars.

Unveiling its enforcement figures for last year, Hong Kong Customs says around 75 percent of its over 38,000 cases involved illicit cigarette-related offences.

Over 28,000 cigarette-related arrests were made -- up more than 30 percent from the previous year.

Authorities said the surge was linked to crime groups recruiting travellers with some parents even exploiting cross-boundary students to drip-feed the illicit cigarettes into Hong Kong through repeated small batches.

Commissioner of Customs and Excise CHAN TSZ-TAT: ""The increased duty rate would inevitably give higher incentive for passengers bringing into Hong Kong excessive cigarettes."

Notably, around 340 million dollars worth of precious metals were seized, doubling the haul than the year before. The bulk of them was smuggled gold.

Customs has not only set up these physical enquiry counters at various control points, featuring Putonghua, English and Cantonese interfaces. But they also extended their AI-upgraded services in Q1, hoping to make the service more accessible to visitors and locals.

Customs signed a Memoradum of Understanding with Taobao & Tmall to prevent prohibited and controlled items from entering Hong Kong through online shopping platforms.

By signing these agreements, we also have the e-commerce platforms to have a better screening and filtering mechanism, so that those goods which are non-compliant with local legislation and regulations can be taken away from their platform.

Customs is not ruling out the possibility to sign similar MOUs with other mainland and international e-commerce platforms in future.