Lithuanians Arrested Contraband Cigarettes Cargo From Belarus Valued At €2.6 Million

Haven’t seen that in 20 years.

Officers of the State Border Guard Service (SBGS) report that on December 29 they conducted a successful operation to stop smuggling. The interception of illegal cargo was carried out in cooperation with customs officers and employees of the Security Department of the Lithuanian Railways company, according to delfi.lt.

The border guards checked three cars of a freight train that was parked in Vilnius at the Paneriai railway station. It arrived in Lithuania from Belarus through the Stasilos checkpoint. The border guards had a suspicion that contraband could be hidden in the cars. Large bags of sunflower granules were found in the cars during the inspection. Boxes of cigarettes were also there.

There was no contraband in the rest of the cars. Camouflage, the bulk cargo in three cars, weighed as much as 66 tons as it turned out later. It was not possible to unload and count all this at the Paneriai railway station. Three cars with contraband were unhooked and sent by rail to Kena. The railway station located there has the necessary equipment and conditions for the examination.

This arrest was not an ordinary operation of the border guards, which required a lot of time both for transporting contraband cargo to Kena and for unloading and counting it. The situation was complicated by various logistical issues and difficult stages of lifting bulk cargo. It took a lot of physical effort and time to manually remove the cigarette boxes, so the exact final size of the record cargo became known only this week.

It was established that 672,000 packs of various types of smuggled cigarettes with Belarusian labels were hidden in three cars arrested by border guards. The cost of such cargo in Lithuania, including all mandatory taxes, is more than €2.6 million. This is the largest intercepted contraband cargo in the history of the SBGS since 2000.

A pre-trial investigation into the illegal sale of excisable goods was initiated. The Vilnius Regional Prosecutor's Office is conducting the pre-trial investigation. The border guards prevented 4,322,114 packs of cigarettes from entering the black market in 2022, the vast majority coming from Belarus. This was the largest annual number of illegal cigarettes seized by the SBGS in more than two decades.

Last year, the amount of cigarette smuggling intercepted by the SBGS compared to previous years significantly increased due to new and more effective border security measures and the interception of large cargoes of tobacco products transported by rail from Belarus.

In 2022, the border guards detected 51 cases of smuggling by rail and thus seized almost 3 million packs of cigarettes (this is 67% of the total number of cigarettes seized by the SBGS).

Belarusian-made cigarettes are usually transported by freight cars from Lithuania, hiding them in bulk cargo (chips, shred, pallets, etc.).