Smuggled cigarettes in Malaysia has increased 150% in the past six years.

The upward trend was from 14.4% in 2004 to the current 37.1%.

Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency’s director-general Admiral Datuk Mohd Amdan Kurish said one out of three packets of cigarettes in Malaysia was smuggled.

He said this to reporters on Thursday after attending a ceremony where a total of 52,783 cartons of smuggled cigarettes seized between 2008 and August 2010 worth some RM3.5mil were destroyed using a crush machine at its Kuala Linggi district office ground earlier.