Seized smokes: Cigarettes worth $2.5 million are seized from a lorry in Yuen Long.

Customs officers have arrested a truck driver after seizing 1.63 million illicit cigarettes worth $2.5 million, and with a duty potential of $1.31 million, from his vehicle.

Officers checked the lorry on Wang Lok Street, Yuen Long, yesterday. The haul is believed to have been smuggled into Hong Kong by sea.

The Customs & Excise Department has intensified surveillance at on shore illicit cigarette offloading blackspots. Offenders have recently switched to smuggling by sea following tightened checks on suspicious vehicles at land checkpoints.

The 36-year-old driver has been released on bail.