Kenya Revenue Authority on Thursday destroyed counterfeit wines and spirits valued Sh20 million in western region.
The authority regional operations manager Stephen Karuga said the products were nabbed in the region starting January this year.
Karuga said they have a strong presence in the region with much market surveillance being done.
He said the goods are posing unfair competition among the traders in the region since there are no taxes paid on them.
“These goods are cheap because they evade tax and this brings unfair competition in the market,” said Karuga.
He said those trading on such goods sell them at low price hence making drugs and alcohol abuse among young people in the region to go high.
Speaking in Kisumu during the destruction of the goods, Karuga said the authority has a number of machines to help in identifying genuine and fake excise duty stamps on the goods.
He said the owners of such goods have been charged and convicted while others were fined in line with the law once the goods were impounded.
Karuga announced that the authority is committed to carry out more raids and surveillance in the region to stamp out illegal goods being sold to the public