Han Solo He Ain't

I have read about them in print and electronic media but I have never met them 'in person' until yesterday afternoon. I 'm talking about smugglers who bring contrabands out of our country such as fuel, cooking oil, sugar and to a lesser extent, flour. Sure, I have met citizens (mostly elderly)of our neighbouring country buying packets of sugar and cooking oil at the local departmental store.  At least they look like they are going to use the items for their own need - even though that means that we are subsidying the wrong group of people.

But what really rankled me happened yesterday. I was at one of the local fuel station, waiting for my turn to fill my car as there was quite a lot of cars. What caught my attention was a blue Proton Iswara filling its tank on the pump next to mine whose driver looks well, suspicious. OK the average car in Malaysia has a 50 liter tank and at the current rate of RM1.90 per liter for RON95 petrol, the absolute maximum he could fill is 50 liters (of course) and roughly costing RM95. But this guy is filling up to RM150 which translates to 79 liters of RON95! Realising that cars are starting to queueing up behind him, he stopped and moved off the station...or was he? After I finished filling my car up, I spotted the same car returning to another pump, the same guy came out and after giving a thumbs-up signal to the worker at the counter, start to fill again! Sure, if we average Joes want to fill our vehicles up, we need to place a 'deposit' first but this guy simply gave a thumbs-up! Something's really smell of ikan pekasam here!

I have no doubt that that guy is a smuggler - a local rather than one from the neighbouring country.  Everything about his car smells of it. The car is rather nondescript plus it has a longer rear suspension system. According to a friend, smugglers have vehicles like that - when the car is full of contraband, the spring compresses and the car is having a more or less neutral 'sit', reducing suspicion from authorities. An average can also fill only up to 50 liters but this guy definately have at least a 100 liter capacity tank. I have a very dim view of smugglers and I actually view them as traitors...and traitors deserve DEATH!