Customs officials at Ben-Gurion International Airport are addressing the increase in the number of arriving passengers trying to smuggle in smart phones. State officials report that 4.5 million cellular telephones were imported in 2001, a third of which classified as smart phones. This generated over 1 billion NIS in tax revenue and customs officials are not likely to just walk away and ignore the increase in smuggling. In the first half of 2012, about a half million phones were imported legally, generating 500 million NIS in tax revenue.
Customs chief Rafi Gabbai explains that when you go to a store to buy a smart phone and you are offered a major discount, it is quite likely the phone was smuggled into the country, not imported legally. “The damage to the state coffer is in the millions of NIS” he explained.
Customs agents began deploying new means to apprehend smugglers, reports tens of thousands of smuggling attempts have been apprehended in recent months. 12,000 packages from other countries are processed in Ben-Gurion daily, and a third of them are being manually scanned, uncovering a growing number of smart phones. Customs officials cite one recent package marked “books” but in essence, contained 40 smart phones. They marked the package and when the intended recipient signed for it he was placed under arrest. “There are many addressed to Bnei Brak and chareidi areas” Gabbai adds, and one smuggler taken into custody admitted that he did succeed to illegally import 400 phones.
An estimated 7,000 new phones are smuggled in by a person involved buying smart phones at a significantly reduced price buy purchasing from carriers in N. America and committing to a three-year plan. The SIM card is placed in an old phone and the new phone makes its way to Ben-Gurion with a store bill for $400 instead of $750 for the new smart phone.
Customs reports that last week, a chareidi male was apprehended on the Green Line at the airport with 300 smart phones without batteries under his shtreimel.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
You can call it damage to the coffers or you can call it a reaction to horific tax rates.
This is called, try to scare people into not bringing in smartphones.
300 smart phones without batteries under his shtreimel! How big of a shtreimel was it?
Maybe if they would stop charging 8000% tax on everything then people will buy them legally
Let them lower the Extremely High Tax, there will then be much less Smuggling
#1,3,4, two wrongs don’t make a right
Seemingly this shtreimel-toting chasid holds that the zionist state is illegitimate and therefore has no right to be charging taxes or duties in the first place.
What’s the problem? They charge 17% tax on the usage. Everyone knows smartphone plans are more expensive so it’s a wash over the life of the phone. Illegal? technically yes, but the Israeli Government should stop crying poverty over stupidity.