On Friday, April 10, border guards stopped the illegal movement of cigarettes across the Latvia–Belarus State border and pulled a raft with contraband cigarettes from the Daugava River.
While conducting aerial border surveillance, border guards in Piedruja Parish, Krāslava Municipality, noticed a suspicious object floating along the current of the Daugava River. The information was immediately passed to a shift of the Piedruja Border Guarding Unit, which, upon arriving at the scene, found two tractor tire tubes with packages wrapped in black polyethylene film. Upon inspection, the border guards discovered 66 120 “NZ Gold” cigarettes with Belarusian excise stamps inside them.
The cigarettes were handed over to officials of the State Police according to jurisdiction, who initiated criminal proceedings under Chapter XIX of the Criminal Law.