SINGAPORE - A 33-year-old Malaysian was found with 9,000 cartons of contraband cigarettes in his Malaysia-registered truck at Woodlands Checkpoint on Friday (June 2) night.

The man had declared his consignment as assorted bread, but an Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officer noticed anomalies in the scanned images of the truck.

Further checks were made and ICA officers found 9,000 cartons of contraband cigarettes concealed in the truck, ICA said in a news release on Monday (June 5).

The cigarettes are worth $740,300 and $54,630 in evaded duty and goods and services tax respectively.

Last month, another Malaysian man, 38, was found with 5,000 cartons of contraband cigarettes worth more than $450,000 in evaded duty and GST at Tuas Checkpoint. He had declared his cargo as air-conditioners.

In April, 10,000 cartons were seized from another Malaysia-registered lorry. The consignment had been declared to contain "ceramic fibres".