Police have charged two business owners in relation to yesterday’s seizure of a quantity of assorted illegal cigarettes in the York Town area of Clarendon.
The two — Fitzroy Parkinson, 40, and 47-year-old Claudette Desouza both of Jamesis Village, Water Lane in the parish — are to answer to charges of possession of uncustomed goods when they appear in the Lionel Town Parish Court on May 11.
The two, who were arrested yesterday, have been granted bail with surety.
According to police reports, 539 cartons of cigarettes — assorted counterfeit brands — were found when a team of investigators from the Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigations Branch (C-TOC) carried out special operations in the area about 1:30 pm yesterday.
The lawmen estimated that the cigarettes, which equates to 13 cases, have a street value of $5,000,000.
They also did not carry the graphic health warning as stipulated by the Ministry of Health’s Tobacco Health Control Regulations (2013).