The smuggling attempts were made amid an increasing shortage of the commodity in the county and a hike in its price.

The seized vehicles and sugar are estimated to be valued at around Rs700 million.

According to a Customs official, the operation was carried out by the Customs Field Enforcement Unit on the border of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Customs unit intercepted a large convoy of 15 trucks coming from Dhana Sar area of Dera Ismail Khan and seized 8,260 bags of sugar.

The sugar was being transported to interior Balochistan and later to the border areas without a permit, the official said, adding that the final destination of these vehicles was Afghanistan.

Inspector Haris Bashar of Quetta Customs said that the Customs and police jointly took action on Friday night. The department had seized three trucks carrying sugar a few days ago and received reports that 15 to 20 trucks with a large consignment of sugar were going to smuggle the commodity to Afghanistan from Quetta, he added.

He said that 8,260 bags of sugar with a total weight of 411 tonnes were seized from 15 trucks.

In terms of kilogrammes, this is 375,000 kilogrammes of sugar.

According to a spokesperson of Customs, the department has seized 1.63 kilotonnes of sugar during July and August, which is estimated to be worth around Rs1 billion.