Lithuanian police have identified more than a dozen groups involved in smuggling cigarettes from Belarus. Some of them have already been dismantled. Lithuanian Police Commissioner General Arūnas Paulauskas spoke about the investigations in an interview with LRT.
“I would not like to disclose the number of remaining groups, as the investigation is ongoing, but work has not yet been completed with all of them. I think we will have new results within the next month or two,” he said.
According to Paulauskas, the investigation is continuing and further arrests are expected.
In May, Lithuanian police carried out a major operation that resulted in the detention of 27 people linked to two smuggling groups. Those detained included 13 police and border service officers, as well as one civilian public official.
Since the end of last year, when a special investigative task force was established, a total of 75 people connected to cigarette smuggling have been detained. Twenty-eight of them remain in custody.
