Auckland man lands community detention for fashion imports

He had been undervaluing clothing and shoes which he imported for resale through his fashion retail business.

In December 2019, Customs officers identified packages of clothing sent through international mail belonging to Mr Kang, which had been undervalued. In one case, a package was undervalued by $65,000. These packages were seized.

A Customs investigation into his clothing business found Kang had undervalued goods over a two-year period and had poor record keeping practices. During an interview with Customs the defendant admitted to undervaluing goods.

A further import of more than 100 boxes of expensive shoes were also undervalued, resulting in Customs prosecution.

Craig Chitty, Customs Group Manager Revenue & Assurance, said: “Individuals and businesses have a responsibility to accurately and honestly record the details of their goods, their value, country of origin, and pay the correct duty.

"Failure to do so is both dishonest and illegal. Undervaluation costs taxpayers millions in lost revenue.

"Customs helps traders do the right thing but, as this case demonstrates, we won’t hesitate to pursue unscrupulous importers who attempt to give themselves an unfair advantage.

"We have a strong track record for tackling revenue evasion, identifying more than $20m over the last four years of deliberate undervaluation of the declared Customs value."

The defendant has paid all outstanding duties, totalling more than $270,000.

4 August 2022: Correction

Please note an earlier version of this media release has been corrected. In the original release, the quote from Craig Chitty read: “We have a strong track record for tackling revenue evasion, recouping $20 million over the last three years that would otherwise have gone unpaid.” This has been corrected to read: “We have a strong track record for tackling revenue evasion, identifying more than $20m over the last four years of deliberate undervaluation of the declared Customs value.”