{"id":517379,"date":"2026-02-13T16:16:54","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=517379"},"modified":"2026-02-14T08:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T05:27:07","slug":"weather-balloon-carrying-cigarettes-again-reaches-lithuania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/weather-balloon-carrying-cigarettes-again-reaches-lithuania","title":{"rendered":"Weather Balloon Carrying Cigarettes Again Reaches Lithuania"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>On Thursday, February 12, Lithuanian border guards intercepted 1,520 packs of Belarusian cigarettes delivered to Lithuania by a weather balloon.<\/p>\n<p>The balloon carrying the cargo was found in the Var\u0117na district. A GPS tracker was attached to the package of cigarettes. A pre-trial investigation has been launched, the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service reported.<\/p>\n<p>Since the beginning of the year, 45 weather balloons carrying cigarettes from Belarus have been intercepted in Lithuania (29 in January and 16 in February). The total value of the cigarettes amounts to around 540,000 euros. Twenty-two people linked to the aerial cigarette smuggling have been detained.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_517196\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-517196\" style=\"width: 1280px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-517196\" src=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/teiojysdpdk.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/teiojysdpdk.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/teiojysdpdk-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/teiojysdpdk-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/teiojysdpdk-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/teiojysdpdk-533x400.jpg 533w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/teiojysdpdk-1067x800.jpg 1067w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-517196\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u0424\u043e\u0442\u043e: vsat.lrv.lt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_517197\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-517197\" style=\"width: 1280px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-517197\" src=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/w26ifxv_6_8.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/w26ifxv_6_8.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/w26ifxv_6_8-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/w26ifxv_6_8-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/w26ifxv_6_8-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/w26ifxv_6_8-533x400.jpg 533w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/w26ifxv_6_8-1067x800.jpg 1067w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-517197\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u0424\u043e\u0442\u043e: vsat.lrv.lt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, February 12, Lithuanian border guards intercepted 1,520 packs of Belarusian cigarettes delivered to Lithuania by a weather balloon. The balloon carrying the cargo was found in the Var\u0117na district. A GPS tracker was attached to the package of cigarettes. A pre-trial investigation has been launched, the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service reported. Since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":517378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/699007b080278.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Weather Balloon Carrying Cigarettes Again Reaches Lithuania"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517379","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\/517379","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}