On Tuesday, seven airborne shipments of smuggled cigarettes were intercepted in Lithuania. All of them were delivered from Belarus using weather balloons.
One of the weather balloons was detected from a border guard helicopter.
“Border guards and police tracked cargo delivered by seven balloons in various locations in southern Lithuania. As usual, GPS devices were attached to all the balloons,” the State Border Guard Service reported.
A total of 12,500 packs of cigarettes were seized.
Since the beginning of the year, 69 weather balloons have been intercepted. The activity of smugglers is lower than last year. In January 2025 alone, 64 shipments were intercepted, followed by 45 in February and 77 in March.
It should be noted that this morning the police of Poland’s Podlasie Voivodeship reported the landing of weather balloons carrying contraband in Białystok.