On Wednesday, September 10, border guards, in cooperation with Finnish colleagues who were deployed to Latvia to support the State Border Guard, seized 60,000 contraband cigarettes in the Krāslava Municipality.
Officials of the State Border Guard, in cooperation with Finnish colleagues, while investigating information about the illegal transportation of tobacco products, stopped an Audi A6 Avant in the Andrupene Parish of the Krāslava Municipality. The vehicle was driven by a Latvian citizen, with another Latvian citizen in the front passenger seat. During the inspection of the vehicle, border guards found two rectangular packages of cigarettes in the luggage compartment, which were smuggled into Latvia via meteorological balloons. Upon examining the packages, it was found that they contained 30,000 "NZ" cigarettes and 30,000 “Queen Superslims” cigarettes. A total of 60,000 cigarettes with Belarusian excise stamps were seized.
Criminal proceedings were initiated by the Police against two citizens of Latvia under Section 221(3) of the Criminal Law (illegal movement of tobacco products committed on a significant scale). Both persons were detained.