A foreign brand of Marlboro cigarettes was seized from Shaurya Cement Industry located in Siraha's Mirchaiya on August 15. The police returned in the evening with three cartons of cigarettes for samples after there was a rumor about this issue within the industry.

However, on July 21, Kantipur reported the scene of two and a half truckloads of cigarettes being burned inside the industry and the evidence of illegal relabelling of the cigarettes, the Revenue Investigation Office, Itahari, raided the industry the next morning.

The Revenue started an investigation of the incident by shooting a video of cigarettes being lit inside the industry and taking away the illegal cigarettes seized from the industry by the local police office, Mirchaiya, demanding a written response from the industry. However, even after more than five months, the revenue has not yet completed its investigation. Uttamkumar Ghimire, the head of revenue, claims that the investigation is taking time because this matter seems to be a bit serious.

According to Revenue Investigation Officer Saroj Koirala, a detailed investigation is being carried out on this case. 'There are two types of investigation, we have completed the preliminary investigation at the beginning,' Koirala told Kantipur, 'now a detailed investigation is underway.' He claims that usually the investigation is completed at the initial stage, but he is not satisfied and is conducting a detailed investigation.

He also said that the initial stage research report has been sent to the Revenue Research Department. He claimed that since the period of preliminary investigation is 6 months and the period of detailed investigation is 9 months, the investigation can be completed within that period.

According to Koirala, the relevant party regarding the relabel has replied that while the cigarettes coming from abroad are still on the way, the tax has increased in Nepal and there will be a loss. However, Koirala said that they have not yet been able to provide documents related to this. 

Suspicious in the case of cigarettes

The Nepali importer of cigarettes is Jagdamba Overseas. Which comes under Shankar Group of Industries. And the solar cement industry, which was found in the state of burning and storing these cigarettes, also belongs to the Shankar Group of Industries. The

industry has been claiming that these cigarettes are sometimes soaked in water and sometimes expired and brought here to burn. However, according to the revenue, a representative of the Internal Revenue Office should be mandatory during the destruction of cigarettes.

However, without doing so, on July 21, two and a half truckloads of cigarettes were secretly burned inside the industry. In this way, it is suspected that there is some secret behind burning millions of cigarettes secretly.

Saigari, Kantipur found two types of cigarettes with stickers of Internal Revenue Department produced by a company called PT Philip Morris based in Indonesia. In which, instead of both types of cigarettes, there is another sticker where the actual price is written and the higher amount is mentioned.

The actual price of cigarettes written only as Marlboro is mentioned as 230 Nepalese rupees. However, at the place where the actual price is written, a black sticker written Nepali Rupees 280 is pasted on top of the plastic cover. 

Similarly, on the underside of the cigarette pack mentioned Marlboro Gold, the actual price is Nepali 280, but in the same way, a black sticker saying 350 rupees is stuck on top of the plastic cover.

However, according to the Office of Commercial Supply and Consumer Protection in Birganj, it is considered illegal to sell and distribute by putting on another sticker with a higher price. Dilip Khang, the information officer of the office, says, "The price of any product is set by the manufacturing company, the revenue is also paid for it, you cannot increase the price yourself." In this way, it seems that the state revenue is also being cheated by selling cigarettes by sticking a high price sticker and cheating the consumers. Similarly, the production dates of 2019 and 2021 are mentioned in the two types of cigarettes found in the industry.