Фото: vid.gov.lv
Latvian customs officers intercepted a large shipment of Belarusian cigarettes at the border. The cargo was being transported under the guise of hand-washing liquid and hidden in buckets filled with sawdust.
On 27 November, a truck with Kazakh licence plates arrived at the Paternieki border checkpoint on the Belarus–Latvia frontier. According to the documents, it was carrying hand-washing liquid.
Customs officers scanned the truck and, after developing suspicions, partially unloaded the cargo. Inside the buckets, instead of hand-washing liquid, they found sawdust in which cigarettes were concealed.
A total of more than 175,000 packs of NZ Gold, Queen Menthol and Minsk Superslims cigarettes were seized. Their value is estimated at 895,000 euros.
A criminal case has been opened for large-scale smuggling, the Latvian customs service reports.