As reported by Polish border guards, on July 13, officers at the Kuznica border crossing point detained two Lithuanian citizens at the scene in the Suražai area during their watch.
“The men came to pick up 350 cardboard boxes of cigarettes without Polish excise stamps, brought by smuggling balloons,” report Polish officers.
No further details about the detained Lithuanian citizens are provided.
Smuggling balloons disrupted Vilnius airport operations regularly a few months ago, as flights were stopped when they were spotted flying. Recently, such cases have been very rare.
Polish border guards say they have been constantly detecting smuggling balloons lately, and in just the past few days, officers from the Podlasie division detained 1760 cardboard boxes of cigarettes brought in by balloons.
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The value of this smuggling is close to half a million zlotys (or nearly 100 thousand euros).
The case is under investigation, so it is not ruled out that more persons suspected of this criminal activity will be identified.
Since the beginning of this year, the Podlasie border protection service division has detained 26 persons involved in smuggling by flying cigarettes into Poland from Belarus using smuggling balloons.
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