{"id":512372,"date":"2026-01-26T14:27:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T11:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=512372"},"modified":"2026-01-26T14:40:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T11:40:38","slug":"lithuanian-border-guards-intercept-cigarette-weather-balloons-and-drone-from-belarus-over-the-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/lithuanian-border-guards-intercept-cigarette-weather-balloons-and-drone-from-belarus-over-the-weekend","title":{"rendered":"Lithuanian Border Guards Intercept \u201cCigarette\u201d Weather Balloons and Drone From Belarus Over the Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Lithuanian border guards again intercepted cigarette smuggling from Belarus over the weekend. Weather balloons were discovered, and a drone was forced to land.<\/p>\n<p>According to the State Border Guard Service, on Saturday evening a drone that entered from Belarus was detected in the \u0160al\u010dininkai district using a surveillance system. Border guards used countermeasures and landed the UAV in a field. A homemade quadcopter was found carrying 1,000 packs of NZ Gold cigarettes with Belarusian excise stamps.<\/p>\n<p>Also on Saturday and Sunday, five consignments of cigarettes delivered by balloons were intercepted. Three balloons were found in the Var\u0117na district, and one each in Druskininkai and the Alytus district. Nearly 20,000 packs of contraband cigarettes were seized.<\/p>\n<p>This year, Lithuanian border guards have already detected 16 consignments of cigarettes delivered by weather balloons. Last year, there were 635 such cases.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_512360\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-512360\" style=\"width: 2280px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-512360 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0ihu2ftkapa.jpg__2280x1520_q85_alias-newshudge_crop-smart_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2280\" height=\"1520\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0ihu2ftkapa.jpg__2280x1520_q85_alias-newshudge_crop-smart_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg 2280w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0ihu2ftkapa.jpg__2280x1520_q85_alias-newshudge_crop-smart_subsampling-2_upscale-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0ihu2ftkapa.jpg__2280x1520_q85_alias-newshudge_crop-smart_subsampling-2_upscale-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0ihu2ftkapa.jpg__2280x1520_q85_alias-newshudge_crop-smart_subsampling-2_upscale-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0ihu2ftkapa.jpg__2280x1520_q85_alias-newshudge_crop-smart_subsampling-2_upscale-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0ihu2ftkapa.jpg__2280x1520_q85_alias-newshudge_crop-smart_subsampling-2_upscale-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0ihu2ftkapa.jpg__2280x1520_q85_alias-newshudge_crop-smart_subsampling-2_upscale-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-512360\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: VSAT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lithuanian border guards again intercepted cigarette smuggling from Belarus over the weekend. Weather balloons were discovered, and a drone was forced to land. According to the State Border Guard Service, on Saturday evening a drone that entered from Belarus was detected in the \u0160al\u010dininkai district using a surveillance system. Border guards used countermeasures and landed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":512371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/697752ba8bb51.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Lithuanian Border Guards Intercept \u201cCigarette\u201d Weather Balloons and Drone From Belarus Over the Weekend"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-512372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}