By U AC
The third kind here is not referring to Steven Spielberg’s human encounters with extraterrestrial life, but our own encounters with those who live below the decency of a second-class human being. We are here talking about smugglers and mules who fill up all the aircraft and the airport lounges. These mules are carrying huge quantities of hard-to-import consumer goods on every single flight, day or night, mainly from Bangkok (BKK), Singapore (SIN) and Kuala Lumpur (KUL) destinations.
Where it all begins…
As the government further tightens up on import controls, products with inelastic demand such as alcohol, cosmetics, mobile phones, etc., continue to have a steady flow of buyers willing to pay above the market prices within Myanmar. Since the end of 2024, operations had begun. Things took a turn for the worse as the government continued its crackdown on them and border checkpoints remained closed. Those smuggling through the land routes also ended up paying tolls a hundred meters or so to anyone waving anything similar to a weapon while wearing something that resembles military dress. It no longer made economic sense.
Here comes the plane route; first, they bought the air cargo and imported millions worth of restricted goods via carriers without paying any kind of import taxes or duties. When the government and customs stepped in, these air cargo operations halted. But who can beat the ingenuity of a smuggler! For a couple of hundred dollars, you can buy a return plane ticket to either BKK or SIN, carry 30 kilogrammes of goods in checked-in, plus roughly ten as hand carry. Once you ‘hook up’ with the airport customs, you can absolutely carry 40 kilogrammes of whatever stuff you fancy. It simply makes more economic sense. We have not even considered the free flights, mileage accumulation and having the perks as the most valuable customers of an airline. What can go wrong!
Passengers have eyes…
Travellers first began to notice the late arrivals of their bags. The first on the carousel are extra-large boxes. For a small airport like RGN, it took uncharacteristically long to get your luggage. The second thing you noticed was certain passengers being out of profiles of typical travellers; dressed shabbily in household attire, a man and woman travelling together but not as friends or couples, showing off behaviours that turned off fellow bona fide travellers. The latter refer to such abhorrent actions as scratching every part of your body and smelling them, putting up smelly legs on the seats, carrying hand-carry bags so large that they can even put themselves in and finally, racing to be number one at the boarding gate so that they will have empty luggage compartments all to themselves first. That is what being an experienced traveller is all about!
Finally, when we see them mingling with the airport police and customs officials upon arrival at RGN, we know something fishy is going on. Sometimes they even got picked up at the aero bridge exit. What a VIP treatment for these smugglers! Some observant foreigners even saw them giving money to officials (with photos to prove). And it ain’t stopping any time soon.
Their checked-in baggage disappeared into thin air, i.e., handled and collected even before landing onto the conveyor belts, causing the business class passengers to wait longer than usual as the smugglers’ bags have to be separated from the same lot. An excellent return for paying a lot more to fly business!
Sometimes, the luggage of legitimate travellers is left behind at the departing airports due to excess weight of the plane. When they collect the item three days later at the airport, half of the foodstuffs inside have already gone rotten. Who is responsible? Airlines are not accepting any responsibility. Neither are the smugglers!
Smugglers about to get into PPS Solitaire
With the same people flying day in day out, especially in business class, a heck load of smugglers is becoming PPS (Priority Passenger Service) members of Singapore Airlines (SQ), or Diamond members of MAI. In no time, they will get into PPS Solitaire Club, the highest possible status, often referred to as the “black card” of Singapore Airlines.
And these achievements come with rewards. PPS members are entitled to 100 per cent extra luggage allowance. Now you can imagine how 50-60 kg of normal business class luggage allowance suddenly balloons into 100-plus kilogrammes. And all the smugglers either use that or, if not eligible yet, buy that. Plus, with every customer being allowed to purchase up to 100kg of excess baggage, each smuggler is now carrying up to 200kg of goods that are going to be imported into the country illegally.
To add salt to the wound for business flyers and other priority customers, when the airline calls up PPS members to board together with them, 50 of them lined up with them, carrying full-sized hand-carry suitcases, getting ready to ‘chop up’ whatever overhead cabin space is available.
Modus Operandi
Initially, the smuggling focus only on the inbound flights. Now outbound flights are also fully loaded, carrying foodstuffs and accessories for the Myanmar diaspora working overseas. E.g., for most of the local produce such as Laphet, go to shops at Peninsula Plaza in Singapore. Obviously, having outbound cargo contributes more dollars to an already extremely profitable high-value inbound route.
And there is segregation of duties too; the packers and local transporters are different from the carriers’ mules who fly on planes. Sometimes, the gang leader himself takes the flight. When they reach Singapore or Bangkok, there will be people to pick up their goods. Then the flyers head straight to airline lounges that they are entitled to, to eat, sleep and wait for up to eight hours before boarding the return flight. Wait! Before boarding the flight, there will be people coming to Changi or Suvarnabhumi to deliver the fully packed carton boxes to carry back to Myanmar. The mules should be well rested to receive these deliveries by then.
50+ smugglers each flight
SQ is the first to notice this irregularity. They are no longer allowing any passengers to purchase or use additional luggage allowances, taking into consideration bona fide travellers. MAI also now enforce strict luggage allowances on both checked-in and hand-carry items. Buying additional kilogrammes is also banned now.
Smugglers are getting smarter too. Since SQ and MAI do not allow them to buy additional baggage allowances, they counter by putting more mules on board. And they are filling up each flight with around 50 passengers (mules) each. And in advance, they do really book the tickets, utilizing all the lower-tier fares before anyone else. The rest of us either have to pay the exorbitant fares or are left without seats as the planes are already full.
The airlines cannot get rid of them or blacklist these smugglers either. The gang leader will simply change the mules. And airlines are further forced into checking the weight of the hand carries at the boarding gate, as smugglers circumvent the hand carry restrictions by buying products at the duty-free section after passing through boarding and immigration counters. Imagine every mule buying two bottles of Johnny Black and there being 50 of them on the plane; how would these 100 bottles fit inside the overhead compartments, in addition to the original full-size hand carry baggage from them? How about the room for the others? SQ is quite strict about this now. If your total hand carries weigh more than seven kilogrammes at the boarding gate, you either have to throw away the excess baggage now, or you have to get off the plane.
While the airlines took such action as above to accommodate genuine flyers on one hand, they increased the ticket prices on the other hand, to take advantage of insatiable demand created by the gang of many. The routes became so lucrative that SQ decided to launch another daily flight on the SIN-YGN-SIN route. MAI is also riding this cash cow. YGN-BKK-YGN flights totalled close to eight per day, even flying at hours unheard of in the history of the airline.
Consequences
These smugglers are not only earning money illegally for themselves, but also benefiting at the expense of other travellers. Fares went up. Bona fide travellers got displaced. Inbound tourism to Myanmar would eventually suffer as visitors cannot book flights or tickets get very expensive comparatively. They inconvenienced all other passengers by having the plane with their smuggled goods, up to the brim, leaving no room for others. For those real travellers lucky enough to be able to push their hand carries into overhead compartments of the plane, the suffering did not end there. You would end up waiting longer at the YGN for your checked-in luggage to come out, while corrupt officials give priority to the smugglers.
Business class travellers even got the raw end of the deal. There is no delicate way to say this, but you ended up sitting next to people who you do not really want to sit with. Sharing your aisle, toilet or even the air that you breathe, while knowing that they are in to smuggle, must be quite an unpleasant experience, to say the least. Business flyers pay extra for everything. This includes paying for the benefit of being in the same section with people of the same stature and flocking together with birds of the same feather. No one would be yearning for this type of premium experience of smugglers and their mules.
Furthermore, the smugglers there are using passenger flights for commercial business imports, which should seriously be subjected to tax and other restrictions. The government loses millions in revenue, and people who fly with them suffer. The smugglers simply do not care.
Plane safety issue
Smugglers are endangering the safety of the aeroplanes too. The planes fly on the assumption that not everyone is going to be carrying the full 20 or 40 kilogrammes (economy/business) of their checked-in baggage or 7/14 kilogrammes of their hand carries. Some may carry close to their entitlements, and some carry far less. If everyone is carrying up to their maximum, how could the plan accommodate such weight?
Government losing out millions
The whole affair is giving Myanmar a very bad reputation. The operations have gone wider now, with flights to China, especially Guangzhou, being subjected to the same unethical ploys. MAI flights to KUL are also fully booked by smugglers now, pushing the ticket prices to the stratosphere. People may mistakenly attribute the price increases to war against Iran or MAI showing off its monopoly status, yet the blame belongs squarely to the smuggling gang.
The international community would doubt if Nay Pyi Taw is in full control. Not being in control of borders is one thing, but this is the major international entry point that we are talking about here. All may be good and well in the capital, but this smuggling has become a joke among foreigners. Furthermore, these smugglers are not only bringing in the goods. They are bringing in foreign currencies from other countries without border controls.
Myanmar government is tightening up imports on legitimate goods and much-needed raw materials for our factories, but these smugglers are making a mockery of the government, its intentions and systems in place. They circumvent all rules and enforcement actions through bribery of lowly-paid officials at the airport and taking advantage of the airlines, fellow passengers and priority travellers. This is entrepreneurship at its worst. Just solely for their own benefits without a care for anyone or anybody in this world. Playing fair does not apply to these smugglers. There is only one solution to get rid of this problem: catch them quickly and sentence them to a serious jail term with hard labour. The runt of society deserves nothing less.
#TheGlobalNewLightOfMyanmar