The Bumthang District Court sentenced a 43-year-old woman from Dagana to four years and two months in prison for smuggling cigarettes in December last year along with her two accomplices.
The accomplices are a 33-year-old woman, a Paan Shop retailer at Chamkhar town in Bumthang and a 29-year-old man from Pemagatshel, a corporate employee in Wangdue Phodrang. The Court passed the judgment this afternoon.
The woman from Dagana who runs a shop at Bajo town in Wangdue Phodrang has been charged for smuggling 5790 sticks (579 boxes) of cigarettes from Jaigaon, India last year. The woman who is a repeat offender sent the consignment to the Paan Shop retailer in Chamkhar in Thimphu-Bumthang bus on December 9, 2019. The civil servant helped in dispatching the cigarettes from Bajo to Chamkhar.
The Paan shop retailer, who is also a repeat offender, has been sentenced to two years and two months in prison. She was also fined Nu 380,100, six times the amount she paid for the consignment.
The police investigation also found out that she did not have Bhutanese citizenship and only had a residential permit. She was running the shop on another woman’s licence. The licence has been confiscated and cancelled.
The man has been sentenced to two years and one month for solicitation and aiding and abetting the crime.
All the sentences are non-compoundable.
The case surfaced after an informer alerted Bumthang police of a suspected tobacco smuggling activity. Police raided the Bumthang bus upon reaching Chamkhar and came across the consignment.
Meanwhile, the two women have appealed against the court’s judgment.
