Фото: vsat.lrv.lt
Smugglers bringing cigarettes from Belarus have lost ground in recent years. Counterfeit cigarettes from Latvia have now become the main challenge for Lithuanian border guards, said Donatas Škarnulis, acting head of the State Border Guard Service.
“There has been a general shift in the routes: the share of tobacco smuggling from Belarus is declining. Over the past few years, counterfeit tobacco products from Latvia have come to predominate, and their share is now even greater than that of products arriving from Belarus,” he told LRT.
According to him, the balance has already shifted in favour of counterfeit products. Škarnulis attributes this change to measures taken by Lithuanian authorities.
“Last year, around 200 people were prosecuted in cases involving balloons alone. This year, we have also recorded dozens of cases. This is ongoing work, and it is genuinely producing results.
This year alone, the number of balloon launches has fallen by a factor of three compared with last year, while the amount of tobacco products delivered in this way has decreased by about half,” he said.
According to border guards, since the beginning of the year Lithuania has intercepted 181 consignments of smuggled cigarettes from Belarus delivered by weather balloons. There were 635 such cases last year. Border guards have also intercepted 67 smuggling drones this year.