According to the data, on Sunday the operator of the video surveillance system of the Pavoverė border post of the Vilnius border detachment recorded a suspicious object floating on the Neris River near the village of Moliai in the Švenčionys district.
Border guards who arrived at the scene confirmed that a hexagonal snowflake-shaped object was floating along the shore towards the Lithuanian side in the Neris.
VSAT officers pulled the object ashore. After cutting off the ends of the metal structure, 2,090 packs of „NZ Gold“ cigarettes with Belarusian tax stamps wrapped in black polyethylene film were pulled out from its cavities.
According to the service data, the value of the tobacco, including the taxes required to be paid in Lithuania, amounts to 11.4 thousand euros. The cigarettes and the raft are temporarily stored at the Pavoverė border post.
Due to illegal handling of excise goods, VSAT has initiated a pre-trial investigation, led by the Vilnius district prosecutor.
As the service noted, exactly two months ago officers pulled out a similar raft with 2,250 packs of the same cigarettes from the Neris.
Border guards have recently encountered the transport of Belarusian tobacco by rafts very rarely. Such smuggling is more intense in the cold season when rafts are disguised as ice floes, but this method is being replaced by tobacco transport by air.
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