During the past holidays, during the control of vehicles and passengers’ luggage, attempts to illegally move 244,200 cigarettes (12,210 packs of cigarettes) across the border were prevented. Officials of the Customs Department of the State Revenue Service (SRS) and the State Border Guard, during the control of cargo trains, discovered 237,600 cigarettes, which were hidden in lumber and wood chips imported from Belarus. On the other hand, 6,600 cigarettes were found in the luggage of an air passenger who went to London.
On March 12, 2022, at the Indra customs control point (MKP), during the control of a freight train arriving from Belarus, the customs dog handler suspected the movement of undeclared goods in a wagon with a load of lumber. Continuing the inspection of the composition, State Border Guard and customs officials discovered cigarettes hidden from customs control in five wagons with lumber. As a result of the control, 187,600 cigarettes (9,380 packs) of “NZ” and “Queen” cigarettes with excise tax stamps of the Republic of Belarus were seized.
On the same day, March 12, customs officials of Indra MKP, while analyzing the scanned images of another freight train and controlling its composition, together with VRS officials found packages with contraband cigarettes in a wagon with a cargo of wood chips. They contained 50,000 “NZ” cigarettes (2,500 packs) with excise stamps of the Republic of Belarus.
On the other hand, on March 13, the customs officials of the Airport MKP, in cooperation with the employees of the “Riga” International Airport, found cigarettes in the hand luggage of a passenger, which a person tried to illegally transport from Riga to London. As a result of the in-depth inspection, a total of 6,600 cigarettes (330 packs of cigarettes) “L&M” and “Corset” without excise tax stamps and “Caines” with excise tax stamps of the Republic of Latvia were found in two travel bags.
When signs of criminal offenses were detected during customs control, the case materials were handed over to the Tax and Customs Police Department of the SRS for decision-making on the initiation of criminal proceedings.
By carrying out customs control measures, in January and February 2022, the SRS Customs Administration prevented a total of 6.46 million smuggled cigarettes from being imported into Latvia. SRS website in the section “Customs/Useful/Smuggled cigarettes. “Statistics” is an opportunity to track online the amount of detected smuggling in the area.
