The service announced on Wednesday that this is already the second vehicle entering from Latvia with tobacco products seized by customs criminal officers within two weeks. On July 30, a vehicle with cigarettes worth 2.4 million euros was stopped near Kryžkalnis.
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A patrol of the mobile group of the Kaunas division of the Customs Criminal Service noticed a suspicious DAF truck with Latvian registration plates on Friday, August 7, around 12 p.m., in the Babtai area. The driver, a Latvian citizen, had stopped at a bus stop. Customs criminal officers passing by also stopped and checked the DAF cargo.
The Latvian citizen initially claimed to be transporting foam plastic for a Lithuanian company, but only the rear of the semi-trailer was loaded with declared goods. Almost the entire remaining part of the semi-trailer was full of boxes with “Winston” and “Minsk Superslims” cigarettes. Officers suspect that these tobacco products were manufactured in a shadow factory operating in Latvia for several years.
In total, about 412 thousand packs of cigarettes were found in the DAF semi-trailer, their value with taxes – 2.1 million euros.
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A pre-trial investigation has been launched for illegal handling of excise goods, led by prosecutors of the 3rd Criminal Prosecution Division of the Kaunas District Prosecutor’s Office.
The truck driver was detained and later arrested for two months by the decision of the Kaunas District Court.
This year, officers of the Customs Criminal Service have already seized about 2.6 million packs of illegal cigarettes, mostly imported from Latvia. Their total value with mandatory taxes is about 13 million euros.
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