Me being a novice or beginner or whatever ya call it in smoking cigars, i've been sourcing for cigars in S'pore. 1st cigar shop i patronised is at Takashimaya, 2nd is at Furama Riverfront Hotel (the main topic of this blog entry) and 3rd is the one at Suntec today which i learned more about cigars and Cigar Affair at Furama Riverfront Hotel (dirty history)... .. .
Here it goes: On the 2 Sep 09 i went down to Cigar Affair at Furama Riverfront Hotel to check out their cigars and i was attended by a couple in their 50s. They seems pretty friendly and also kept saying that they're giving me very special price which they usually dont, they also repeatedly tell me that Cuban cigars are no longer good and kept recommending me Nicaragua & Dominican Republic cigars which they swear that it's good quality cigars. As a beginner i don't know much about cigars so i trusted their recommendation and eventually i was being convinced to buy a few cigars and a travel case from them with a total damage of SGD200!A couple in Singapore have been fined and sentenced to jail for selling counterfeit cigars out of their shop, Cigar Affair, located in the Furama Riverfront Hotel. The charges were brought by the Pacific Cigar Co. Singapore Pte Ltd., a subsidiary of the Pacific Cigar Co. in Hong Kong that is the exclusive distributor of Cuban cigars for the Asia Pacific region.
According to a press release from Pacific Cigar Co., store manager Jacob Quek Gim Siew and his wife and store owner, Esther Goh Soo Im, were convicted on May 21 for the sale and possession of fake Cuban cigars. They were sentenced on June 7 for numerous violations of Singapore’sTrade Marks Act, which states that any person who imports, manufactures or sells goods with falsely applied trademarks is punishable by law.
An article in The Straits Times reported that Goh was fined $74,000 and sentenced to four weeks in jail. Her husband was sentenced to six weeks’ incarceration and fined $70,000. The sentence was handed down by District Judge Amy Tung, of the Subordinate Courts of the Republic of Singapore. “I am very pleased with the outcome of the trial because they can no longer hide behind a veil of credibility that Cigar Affair was an authorized distributor of our company and thereby Habanos S.A., while trying to camouflage their ille- gal activities,” said Dag Holmboe, CEO of the Pacific Cigar Co. “Furthermore, it will help protect our clients against companies like Cigar Affair selling fake Cubans.”
Private investigators had been monitoring Cigar Affair and collecting evidence since 2004 by posing as customers and purchasing the counterfeits, according to the press release. Throughout the investigation, Goh and Quek sold many illegitimate cigars to the undercover agents, the most egregious examples of fraud being boxes of Cohiba Robusto Edición Limitadas and Partagas Pirámides Edición Limitada 2001s. No such limited editions were ever created by Habanos.
The police later raided the shop and seized more boxes of counterfeit cigars. However, Judge Tung ordered that the confiscated cigars be returned to Cigar Affair on a technicality. The cigars were returned under the conditions that the defendants might be called upon to produce the returned goods as evidence during the ongoing trial. “Instead, they sold off all of the goods after they were returned,” said public prosecutor Chia Chor Leong. “Fortunately, we had taken the precaution of filming them under police supervision before they were returned.”
The couple are out on $10,000 bail each and have appealed their convictions. This is the first tobacco trademark infringement case in Singapore involving counterfeit cigars.
1 comments:
yah mudabitches jian shang, go to OLDE CUBAN, they also mark up, ( rentals, tobacco tax and staff etc etc need to be paid.) Though I do not think it is in the range that you said in your post.
Though I think all is fair in love and Business. Caveat Emptor !
I have heard of some who import themselves and just pay for the tob tax. Cheaper .
Unless he sold you fake goods.
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