Ahmedabad, May 7 (PTI) Three persons, including the managing director of a shipping company, were arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in connection with illegal import of foreign brand filtered cigarettes having a market value of around Rs 17 crore, an agency official said on Saturday.

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The Ahmedabad zonal unit of DRI had on April 1 seized a container at Mundra port in Gujarat's Kutch district with 84 lakh sticks of smuggled foreign brand filtered cigarettes named 'BBM pride filter kings', it said in a statement.

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The consignment of cigarettes worth Rs 16.8 crore was imported from the United Arab Emirates in a container declared as hotel supplies, bed sheets and pillow covers, and was seized under the Customs Act, 1962, said the release.

Based on an inquiry done so far in this connection, it arrested three persons on Friday, comprising the managing director of a shipping company in Gandhidham in Kutch district, a partner of a Dubai-based container line company and their associate from Bengaluru, the DRI statement informed.

"During investigation, it is primarily revealed that in the arrival manifest, the subject consignment was declared for discharge at Mundra for further transshipment to a fictitious consignee in UK and the shipping agent had issued parallel documents to bring the said consignment in India," stated the DRI release.

The DRI said an active syndicate was involved in the smuggling of the cigarettes, which are declared as notified goods to curb the menace of smuggling. Further probe is underway, it added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)