Cigarette smuggler's six-bedroom Auckland home seized and for sale
Cigarette smuggler's six-bedroom Auckland home seized and for sale
By Geraden Cann of Stuff
The upstairs of the home has three double bedrooms, a family bathroom with an open-plan kitchen and living room. Photo: Supplied / Google Maps
A six-bedroom home belonging to an Auckland businessman involved in a $537,000 tobacco tax fraud has been seized and is up for sale.
The Laburnum Road home in the Auckland suburb of Mount Roskill is currently under offer and is estimated by Quotable Value to be worth $1.23 million.
Chief customs officer for fraud Nigel Barnes confirmed the home was that of Bo Lin, whose company Enternal Trading Limited was caught trying to smuggle 483,000 cigarettes into the country in a shipping container, disguised as food.
The home is described in its online advert as situated on an 883m² section "with an attractive and private rear section that offers loads of parking, separate garaging and an inground (sic) swimming pool for summer enjoyment and family fun".
Barnes said the investigation that led Lin's operation being found out took place in 2020 when the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) located the cigarettes and alerted Customs.
"The container we found, and I think this is going back to July 2020, contained 483,600 cigarettes, which represents just over $500,000 in revenue at that time," he said.
"We did some search warrants on his residential and business address and found further evidence, including some storage unit keys."
The storage unit was located, and inside was 600,000 more cigarettes.
Lin and Enternal Trading, of which he is the sole director and shareholder, were charged with defrauding the revenue of Customs in an effort to evade more than $537,500 in excise tax.
With the storage unit cigarettes included, the sum of tax would have been more than $1m.
Lin received a community sentence of home detention, and the company received a $25,000 fine.
But that was not the end of the investigation. Barnes said a referral was then made to the police asset recovery unit in order for lost tax revenue from the activity to be recovered.
"These criminals won't just pay us with the revenue they've made simply because we've sent them a letter saying how much they owe us," Barnes said.
"Often it's more appropriate to make a referral to the police recovery unit."
Barnes said the sale of Lin's home should be a warning to others considering similar schemes.
"The motive for this is you can make a lot of money with low risk - but it's not actually low risk and this is an example of how criminals can expect to lose their ill-gotten gains," Barnes said.
"We hope this sort of thing is a deterrence to others."
"This wasn't a one-off, we've done it a few times in recent years."
Barnes said if there was excess from the sale, it would go back to the owner.
He had contacted police to see if any other assets had been seized, but been advised it would not be able to provide details today.
Police said it would not be able to provide a response until Monday.
The real estate agent in charge of the sale confirmed the property did fall under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act, but was unable to provide details.
"Essentially we take the properties to auction as a normal campaign," he said.
The agent said the property was under offer, and the potential buyer was undertaking their due diligence process.
*This story was originally published on Stuff.
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