They were stuffed into a house near the border crossing - and it's clear the intent was to move them across the border. It was an unusual end for the cigarettes which Guatemalan businessman, Jose Antonio Ramirez had bought legitimately in the Free Zone and gotten the customs to escort to Customs in PG - where he was supposed to send it off to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.

But something went wrong with that connection - and the cigarettes next turned up as uncustomed goods in Jalacte. Customs confiscated all of it - and transferred the over one thousand cases to its bonded warehouse in Belize.

Since then, Ramirez retained the services of attorney Godfrey Smith who approached customs to offer a settlement where the cigarettes would be released and re-exported. Customs agreed and Ramirez paid a fifty thousand dollar fine to have the cigarettes released. This time, customs escorted it to the western border with Guatemala.

Typically, confiscated items attract a fine of three times the value, but in this case, Ramirez's attorney appealed on the grounds that no law was breached - even though it was found in Jalacte - the boxes were not, per se, being smuggled. He argued also that all Ramirez wanted to do was to get his cigarettes exported to Guatemala - within a reasonable time since they are perishable.