Hong Kong – Hong Kong Customs steps up enforcement to combat illicit cigarette peddling activities
Hong Kong Customs steps up enforcement to combat illicit cigarette peddling activities
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Hong Kong Customs mounted a large-scale special anti-illicit cigarette operation codenamed “Tempest” in February 19 to step up enforcement in combating illicit cigarette activities on all fronts at each control point and across various districts. During the operation, Customs not only cracked down on cross-boundary cigarette smuggling activities by interception in the upper stream and shut down storage and distribution centres in the middle, but also tackled peddling activities in the lower end. Today (April 15), Customs also conducted operations in Sham Shui Po and detected three illicit cigarette peddling cases.
Customs officers intercepted three suspicious men, aged 23, 59 and 67 respectively, in Sham Shui Po this afternoon and seized between 200 to 800 sticks of suspected illicit cigarettes on each of them. They all claimed the cigarettes were for personal use. The three arrested men were charged with “possession of goods to which the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance applies”.
As of today, Customs has detected a total of 179 peddling cases of illicit cigarettes this year, with a total of about 150 000 suspected illicit cigarettes, with an estimated market value of about $610,000 and a duty potential of about $430,000, seized. A total of 179 individuals, including 160 men and 19 women, aged between 17 and 86, were arrested. Most of them are buyers of illicit cigarettes and there is a trend of young people being involved. Also, Customs found that more than half of the cases occurred in Sham Shui Po, Kwun Tong, Tuen Mun and Tsuen Wan districts. The number of illicit cigarettes seized from the arrested persons ranged from 100 to over 6 000 sticks, with the majority intended for personal use.
Customs stresses that it is an offence to buy or sell illicit cigarettes. Among the illicit cigarette cases in 2023, the court sentenced a maximum penalty of four months’ imprisonment on individuals who purchased illegal cigarettes for personal use. Customs reminds members of the public, especially young people, to never become involved in illicit cigarette activities to avoid creating a criminal record that affects their future.
Under the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance, anyone involved in dealing with, possession of, selling or buying illicit cigarettes commits an offence. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine of $1 million and imprisonment for two years.
Members of the public may report any suspected illicit cigarette activities to Customs’ 24-hour hotline 2545 6182 or its dedicated crime-reporting email account (crimereport@customs.gov.hk) or online form (eform.cefs.gov.hk/form/ced002).
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Confirmtkt, the Bangalore-based online train ticket discovery and booking engine, has seen a big jump in its revenue for the financial year ended on March 31, 2019. The company has reported net revenue of Rs. 4.7 crore in FY 2018-2019 as against Rs. 89.84 lakhs in FY 2017-2018. Confirmtkt, which launched the train ticket booking feature in March 2018, currently has an annual turnover of Rs. 93 crores.
Dinesh & Sripad, Co-founder of Confirmtkt
In October 2019, Confirmtkt crossed 25 lakh train bookings, which is worth 250 crore bookings a year. With 10 million+ app downloads to date, the platform has successfully gained user trust and cemented its position in the industry. Besides English, the Confirmtkt app has support for seven regional languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam and Bengali.
Sharing his insights, Dinesh Kumar Kotha Co-founder & CEO of Confirmtkt, said, “FYs an important turning point for us in terms of reaching new milestones. We registered robust growth after our successful pivot from information only plat 2018-2019 waform to transactional platform following the launch of train ticket booking feature. This year we are anticipating a 4x growth in terms of revenues and we are on track for this.”
“The train ticketing market is gaining momentum with privatization of trains and the entry of bigger players into the market. India’s train market can soon be compared to the European train market where the trains are run by multiple private players. Privatization will present new growth opportunities for startups like us and help us provide better customer experience. We plan to complete 5x of current monthly booking traction of 5,30,000 tickets in the next 18 months,” he added.
In the next 18 months, the company aims to expand horizontally by offering multiple services to railway commuters which will make their travel hassle free. He also said, to fuel this expansion we are already in talks to raise USD 10 Mn series – a funding round.
Confirmtkt is also looking to launch a multilingual voice-based train booking feature that will target the new internet users from non-metros. The beta version is already live and it will soon be rolled out to everyone.
About Confirmtkt
Confirmtkt, Bangalore based online train ticket discovery and booking engine delivers a seamless search and booking experience to travellers. Catering primarily to budget travellers using smartphones, the platform has a one-of-its-kind feature of predicting the status on waitlisted tickets and suggesting alternate travel options to them in case of unavailability of direct connecting trains. Confirmtkt is the brainchild of Sripad Vaidya and Dinesh Kumar Kotha and was commenced in March 2015 with an intention to assure a confirmed train ticket to its customers to travel anywhere in India. Confirmtkt has received awards like Mbillionth award and the NASSCOM award for its innovative products.
India’s oldest and most trusted investment fortnightly Dalal Street Investment Journal (DSIJ) has launched a new product, Super 60. Our expert research team sifts through the entire universe of listed stock and develops a compendium; these are stocks that have been generating steady and predictable cash flows, and healthy return ratios (ROE, ROCE etc.) along with revenue growth over the last five years.
Subscribers of Super 60 will receive a portfolio of 12 stocks across Large Cap, Mid Cap and Small Caps classification with an aim to build the wealth over 5 years, taking help of the power of compounding.
These will be sent by email and would also include the investment rationales behind each stock recommended. Portfolio is reviewed annually to rebalance and correct as required. Subscribers to receive the performance report on monthly basis and updates on quarterly results of stocks held in the portfolio.
DSIJ – Super 60
www.dsij.in/super60
Commenting on the new product launch, Rajesh V Padode, Managing Director of DSIJ Pvt. Limited said, “Conceptualizing a product with a 5 years’ horizon was not an easy task. Time and again, we had been receiving requests for a longer-term product from our subscribers enabling a steady investment growth. Super 60 is a culmination of many minds and work hours to fill up this much needed and unserviced space. The early feedback received is very encouraging for the entire team.”
About DSIJ
Starting off as a 12-page cyclostyled stapled booklet in 1986, Dalal Street Investment Journal (DSIJ), the flagship product of the company, soon began to be looked upon as the gospel of stock market investing. At a time when quality investment guidance was unavailable, the company (DSIJ) pioneered many ‘firsts’ to cater to the fast growing investor base of India. Over the years, the company’s primary publication and other products have helped investors create and protect their wealth in the most meaningful manner, guiding both new investors and the experienced ones, not to forget the established traders, to choose the right stocks, avoid pitfalls and reap the benefits of high tides in the vast ocean of equity investments. It is this vast experience, study and toughening during all kinds of scams and market ups and downs that gives DSIJ an unbiased balanced insight about the several unfolding events without getting swayed by temporary and misleading populous excitement.
To know more about ‘Super 60’, Please visit – www.dsij.in/super60. New Delhi, Delhi, India
Buzzmeeh, an onsite mobile repairing company providing on-location mobile repair service are expanding towards the franchise model of retail business. Ever since its inception in October 2015 from New Delhi NCR, the brand had catered to a base of over 10k customers, now serving a base of 1.5lacs+ customers nationwide and expanded to Bengaluru, Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. The startup aims to enter the franchise business and open 100 retails stores in the country by 2021-22.
By moving into the franchise model of retail, Buzzmeeh not only aims to expand their services around the country but also increase their scope of business by introducing new services for Macbooks and iWatches.
Ms. Anjali Negi, Co-founder on the development said, “After 4 years in the online mobile repairing industry, the variations of smart devices is increasing at a rapid rate. For this moving into a hybrid model of online as well as retail market is very essential as the customer base is expanding rapidly with new smart devices. By entering the franchise model of retail business we are expanding our scope of business into Macbooks and iWatches we aim to provide offline trust with online convenience. That is why we have changed our firm tagline from “Online care for mobile and tablets” to “Smart Services for Smart devices“.”
Buzzmeeh is on an expansion spree all across the country through their franchise model and moving into retail. It works at easing the issues of reliability and personal connection that the customers feel towards mobile service providers and offer a credible and convenient solution to smart device repairs repair.
About Buzzmeeh
Based out of Delhi-NCR region, Buzzmeeh.com offers a simple and cost-effective process for all mobile users to get their mobiles phones repaired in a click. Taking mobile repairing beyond the industry norms, the first players to introduce the concept of onsite repair in India its scope of services ensures complete customer satisfaction. Customers can avail onsite repairing services by getting their devices fixed right in front of them ensuring their devices protection of hardware and data. Offering a plethora of different options for the customers Buzzmeeh provides Express services to help the customers get their devices fixed in a very short time period in all their present cities. Providing high quality parts Buzzmeeh provides 180 days to lifetime warranty on all the parts that are used for the repair.
For more information, please visit www.buzzmeeh.com. Nashua, N.H., Tunisia
Parallel Wireless, Inc., the leading U.S. – based OpenRAN company delivering the world’s only software-defined end-to-end OpenRAN solution for coverage and capacity, today announced that Vodafone, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, deployed a macro Parallel Wireless OpenRAN pilot in Asia (Turkey) and in Africa (Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)). Both production trials are a part of a Telecom Infra Project OpenRAN initiative to reduce deployment and maintenance costs for RAN platforms.
Parallel Wireless – Telecom Infra Project
Amid growing demand for mobile broadband services, mobile operators face CAPEX and OPEX deployment challenges, especially with maintaining ALL G networks or bringing new coverage or capacity to their end users. Parallel Wireless innovative virtualized multi-technology OpenRAN solution disaggregates hardware and software to make deployments fully virtualized, easy and affordable to install, maintain and to upgrade to any future technology resulting in potential OPEX reduction by up to a third.
Parallel Wireless – Telecom Infra Project
Parallel Wireless, the world’s only ALL G cloud-native fully virtualized RAN solution, has shown a very strong performance, quality of service and cost benefits while for the first time simultaneously delivering all 3 RAN technologies (2G, 3G, 4G/LTE) to commercial customers.
Parallel Wireless – Telecom Infra Project
What makes the Parallel Wireless Open RAN solution unique?
The multi-technology software-defined GPP-based base stations allowed Vodafone to replace legacy 2G systems with fully virtualized 2G technology and to run simultaneously 2G and 4G on the same base station to provide commercial data and voice services to Vodafone customers in Turkey, in urban and rural parts of the country. At the same time, customers in DRC are receiving 2G and 3G service from the same base station simultaneously in a forthcoming trial. Multi-technology RRUs are software-defined, easy to deploy and maintain.
OpenRAN Controller is the industry only software platform that virtualizes ALL G RAN and core functions (i.e., vBSC for 2G, vRNC for 3G, small cell and core gateways for 4G) to lower the cost of RAN through simplification, automation, and full virtualization of networks. It also provides seamless mobility, local breakout, and low latency for the best subscriber experience for Vodafone customers. The software enables an OpenRAN architecture by using standard-based and open interfaces between network components and as a result, enables an OpenRAN ecosystem. It also simplifies network management and integration of new RAN products into the core of the network through its automation layer and enables a clear technology evolution.
Parallel Wireless – Telecom Infra Project
Supporting quotes
Amrit Heer, Head of Business Development, EME, Parallel Wireless said, “As a leading global operator, Vodafone is setting the standard for connecting the worldwide population, consumers, enterprises, and things. Hardware-based networks are costly and difficult to maintain and upgrade. By shifting networks to virtualized OpenRAN, telecom operators can cloudify their networks to deliver coverage to every single subscriber at much lower cost. We are proud to support Vodafone in reimagining wireless infrastructure to be much lower cost ensuring more equal access to connectivity.”
Lux Maharaj, Director, Africa Sales Parallel Wireless, said, “We are committed to our role in innovating in the OpenRAN ecosystem to help eliminate the digital divide. By decoupling the programmable RAN software from the hardware and allowing it to run on general-purpose processing platforms, Parallel Wireless enables cloud native architectures, providing greater flexibility for operators. As a result, the costs associated with building or modernizing mobile networks are reduced and connectivity can be brought to every single person in the world.”
About Parallel Wireless
Parallel Wireless is the only US company challenging the world’s legacy vendors with the industry’s only unified ALL G (5G/4G/3G/2G) software-enabled solution. Its cloud-native network software redefines network economics for global mobile operators in both coverage and capacity deployments, while also paving the way to 5G. The company is engaged with 50+ leading operators worldwide. Parallel Wireless’s innovation and excellence in multi-technology, open virtualized RAN solutions have been recognized with 65+ industry awards.
For more information, please visit: www.parallelwireless.com. Connect with Parallel Wireless on LinkedIn and Twitter.Online Train Ticket Discovery and Booking Engine -2019
A Steady Multi-cap Builder
To learn more about the company and services offered please visit: www.dsij.in.Buzzmeeh Forays into Retail Business, Plans to Open 100 Retail Stores by 2021-22
Parallel Wireless Helps to Deliver on Vodafone’s OpenRAN Vision in Asia and Africa
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