{"id":521533,"date":"2026-02-27T17:21:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=521533"},"modified":"2026-02-27T19:07:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:07:42","slug":"black-weather-balloons-carrying-belarusian-cigarettes-land-in-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/black-weather-balloons-carrying-belarusian-cigarettes-land-in-poland","title":{"rendered":"Black Weather Balloons Carrying Belarusian Cigarettes Land in Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Officers of Poland\u2019s Nadbuzhansky Border Guard Unit have thwarted the smuggling of illegal tobacco products using weather balloons. Two men who arrived to collect consignments of cigarettes were detained in the case.<\/p>\n

Border guards from the Terespol unit stopped an Audi travelling at high speed for inspection while on duty. Cigarettes bearing Belarusian excise stamps with a total value of more than 30,000 zlotys (over \u20ac7,000) were found in the boot. It was established that the cigarettes had been delivered to Poland using a black meteorological balloon.<\/p>\n

The driver and passenger, Polish citizens, admitted to smuggling. They face a fine and up to five years in prison for smuggling and for operating an aircraft in violation of the rules in force in the area.<\/p>\n

At the same time, border guards discovered several more balloons carrying cigarette consignments with a total value exceeding 200,000 zlotys in the areas of responsibility of units in Bia\u0142a Podlaska, Bohuka\u0142y and Terespol.<\/p>\n

The Border Guard noted that reinforced protection of the state border is forcing smugglers to seek new methods of transporting goods. This time, black meteorological balloons were used to improve concealment at night.<\/p>\n

Since the start of the year, the Nadbuzhansky Border Guard Unit has already recorded 30 cases of excise goods smuggling using weather balloons. The estimated value of cigarettes seized in this way has exceeded 1 million zlotys.<\/p>\n

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Photo: strazgraniczna.pl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo: strazgraniczna.pl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officers of Poland\u2019s Nadbuzhansky Border Guard Unit have thwarted the smuggling of illegal tobacco products using weather balloons. Two men who arrived to collect consignments of cigarettes were detained in the case. Border guards from the Terespol unit stopped an Audi travelling at high speed for inspection while on duty. Cigarettes bearing Belarusian excise stamps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":521532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/69a1c153cfa23.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Black Weather Balloons Carrying Belarusian Cigarettes Land in Poland"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521533","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=521533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}