He said 6,379 falsely declared goods worth RM423 million were seized this year, recovering Customs duty value of RM633 million.
Khazali said a vast majority of the items seized were due to evasion of duties through false declaration by importers.
“At the Butterworth port, for example, we caught a trader bringing in crates of wine, but declaring them as tempered glass.
“Another case involved a trader claiming to have a consignment of fresh carrots. But when we checked, there were more than just carrots, there were other items as well,” he said during a working visit to the North Butterworth Container Terminal (NBCT).
Present were Penang Customs director Mohd Pudzi Man and Penang Port chief operating officer V Sasedharan.
Khazali said the detection of falsely declared goods was thanks to the installation of two new scanners, costing RM24 million, in May. The scanners were activated in September.
He said the new demerit-based system for Customs officers since April 1 had borne fruit. It was reported that officers who received a certain number of demerit points might be suspended from duty.
“Last year, we had eight consignments arriving from afar at the NBCT.
“In these eight consignments, we found 200kg of cocaine. We have charged those responsible in court. The case is currently in court.
“This was made possible using a risk management system where we combined human efforts to conduct checks with high-tech scanning equipment.”
On a different note, Khazali said the long queues by hauliers entering and leaving the NBCT were to be expected due to stringent checks by Customs officers.
He said claims that the new scanning system took too long were not true as the new scanners took 45 seconds to a minute to scan haulage.
Khazali said overall, it would take about 40 minutes to an hour for hauliers to clear Customs using the scanner-and-manual checks.
Before this, a manual search would take 20 to 25 minutes.
“On average, we scan 600 containers a day. This may go up to 900 on certain days.
“I would suggest that hauliers steer clear of peak hours as it may be congested and perhaps try coming when there is less traffic, after 8pm.
“We need to ensure that no barred goods leave or arrive on our soil.” Khazali said.
The NBCT at the Butterworth Port had moved 1.3 million twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) shipments up to November this year.