Russian and Lithuanian Customs Officers Confiscate Large Consignments of Belarusian Cigarettes

The driver was arrested.

The customs services of Russia and Lithuania reported the seizure of large consignments of contraband cigarettes from Belarus.

More than 20 thousand packs of cigarettes with excise stamps of Belarus were found in bags with decorative chips by employees of the Baltic customs. The St. Petersburg company exported 19.5 tons of the product "decorative wood chips from coniferous wood" to Germany.

The uncharacteristic darkening was found during the inspection of the container. Upon opening the 40-foot container, customs officials found more than 1,000 brown paper bags. Inside the packages were black plastic bags with packs of NZ cigarettes with Belarusian excise stamps. In total, 20 thousand packs of cigarettes were identified.

Smuggled cigarettes were also found in an Iveco truck driven by a Belarusian citizen who arrived at the Raygorod border crossing on 18 February. The driver stated that he transported 22 tons of concrete blocks from Belarus to one Vilnius company. However, it turned out that the blocks were just an imitation of the load. The blocks formed hollow caches containing thousands of packages of contraband cigarettes. In some storage facilities, concrete was poured instead of cigarettes to mask the difference in weight.

According to preliminary estimates, at least 100,000 packs of Belarusian cigarettes Minsk Superslims and NZ Gold were found. Their cost with obligatory taxes is about € 355 thousand. The driver was arrested for a month.

Earlier it was reported that the smuggling of 1.8 million packs of Belarusian cigarettes with an approximate cost of about $ 7.5 million was confiscated at the Polish border. This is the largest attempt to smuggle cigarettes at border crossings in Poland.