Illegal cigarette smuggling man: an appreciation

The Spinoff

07-05-2025

New Zealand has lost its mojo. Maybe it could learn something from a man who strapped 1,620 cigarettes inside his pants and said 'today is the day I walk through an airport'.
Sometimes a single image can change you. Carl Sagan grasped our cosmic insignificance more profoundly after seeing Pale Blue Dot. Millions of children were permanently traumatised at the sight of Simba trying to wake Mufasa up in The Lion King. On Monday, a similarly impactful image was released on the social media accounts of the New Zealand Customs Service. It showed a 35-year-old Indonesian man with 1,620 cigarettes stuffed under his white singlet.
Customs said this man was detained at Wellington airport when officers somehow identified him as being in possession of more than the 50 cigarettes you're legally allowed to bring into the country. Its accompanying photo raises a plethora of existential questions. Chief among them is 'how does one man get 1,620 cigarettes inside his singlet?'. With some difficulty, it seems. The man's entire lower torso is a clown car of cigs. His trousers are straining at the sheer volume of nicotine they're being asked to contain. Several packets protrude from the side of his clothing.
Furthermore, how did NZ Customs manage to catch this smuggler despite his sophisticated efforts at concealment? In a statement to The Spinoff, it said its officers spotted signs of the tobacco inside the man's 'choice of clothing', without elaborating further. Those officers must have been alert and eagle-eyed, because the organisation also confirmed his cigarettes originated in Jakarta.
That means by the time he was apprehended, the smuggler had already transited through Indonesian Customs and transferred onto another flight bound from Sydney to New Zealand, all without anyone realising he had nearly 2,000 cigarettes stuffed into his belt. All up, the durries snuck 8,000km, past hundreds of fellow travellers and security personnel, only to come to a halt literally metres from finding a new life on the streets of the Miramar Peninsula.
Though it didn't provide much other information, NZ Customs did furnish The Spinoff with an extra photo, which reveals both the cig man's brand of choice, and method of transportation.
Its statement adds that the man had previously entered the country to work on New Zealand-flagged fishing vessels. He will no longer be allowed to do so. His Work to Residence visa has been cancelled due to the 'crime' of stuffing $2,447.38 worth of cigs into his pants.
That's a shame, because New Zealand is desperately short of ambition. It's trying to plug a budget hole by taking money off low-paid women. Our prime minister is stumbling through farm fields trying to relocate our lost mojo. Where's the go-get-em attitude that propelled Richie McChayaw to the top of Mt Everest? The underdog spirit that saw us become the first country in the world to throw a nine-inch penis-shaped dog toy at a minister of the Crown?
Maybe, just maybe, we detained it under the angry eagles at the Wellington domestic terminal. Perhaps the reservoir of confidence we're seeking is with the man who looked into the mirror with 1,620 cigarettes protruding from his trousers and said 'today is the day I fly to New Zealand'.
As Steve Jobs once said, here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round cigs in the square holes, because they're the ones who'll change the world. So shine on, you crazy 35-year-old cig-covered diamond. Sorry you won't be subject to potential exploitation on a camera-free fishing vessel near Antarctica anymore. But if there's one thing this has proved, it's that even with the odds stacked against you, you'll find a way to get through.