On Monday, May 14, a man was caught trying to smuggle duty-unpaid cigarettes from Malaysia into Singapore... in a hollowed-out loaf of bread.

The 28-year-old Malaysian motorcyclist had stuffed four packs into the loaf, but was discovered by Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers as he was passing through the Woodlands checkpoint.

The loaf of bread was placed, innocently enough, at the front of his motorcycle.

According to an ICA Facebook post titled "Contra-bread", the Malaysian man was charged a composition of S$800 by the Singapore Customs. Compounding means that after he pays the S$800 to the authorities, he is effectively acquitted of his offence and will not face any charges, nor will he be convicted of any offences.

As cigarettes are considered dutiable goods, failure to declare or making an incorrect declaration of cigarettes brought into Singapore is punishable by a composition sum of S$200 per packet.

Here's ICA's Facebook post:

Many such incidents often happen

This is far from the first time something like this has happened — it's likely simply the novelty of this man's approach that resulted in him being used as an example.

Last June, the driver of a Malaysian truck carrying 9,000 cartons of contraband cigarettes had declared them as “assorted bread”.

And earlier this year in February, close to 70,000 cans of duty-unpaid beer was declared as fruit punch:

In fact, so many of these contraband items are discovered by the authorities that the Singapore Customs previously held public auctions with the liquor forfeited by the court.

Such auctions are no longer being organised, though.

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Security concerns

But of course, the ICA’s main concern with border checks is security.

Previously, in its Facebook post about the beer declared as punch, ICA explained the security implications for this method of smuggling:

“This method of concealment is a cause for concern as it may be used by people with ill intent to smuggle security items into Singapore.”

ICA has also assured members of the public that they "will continue to conduct security checks on passengers and vehicles at the checkpoints to prevent attempts to smuggle in undesirable persons, drugs, weapons, explosives and other contrabands."

Top photo from ICA Facebook post.