A joint operation conducted by the Hawks Nelspruit based Serious Commercial Crime Investigation, Crime Intelligence, and Customs and Excise resulted in the arrest 45-year-old Bangladeshi national who is in the country with the status of a temporary asylum seeker.
The team operationalised intelligence driven information that led them to West Acres in Nelspruit on Thursday, 23 October 2025. Master boxes containing different brands of illicit cigarettes were recovered in the Bangladeshi national’s supermarket.
The foreign national could neither produce proof of purchase nor proof of tax duties. He was charged for Contravention of the Customs and Excise Act of South Africa, possession, distribution, and selling illicit cigarettes.
He is expected to appear before Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court on Friday, 24 October 2025.
“The Hawks commended the teamwork that resulted in this major breakthrough. The country is losing revenue due to illicit products that are illegally smuggled and sold in the Republic of South Africa,” said the Provincial Head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation in Mpumalanga, Major General Nico Gerber.
