Bulgarian customs officers seized nearly 99.000 smuggled cigarettes

A total of 98,800 pieces and 4,940 packets of smuggled cigarettes were seized by customs officers from Customs Intelligence and Investigations during a check of a Turkish-registered lorry travelling to the UK, Bulgaria’s Customs Agency said on October 30.

The vehicle entered Bulgaria from Turkey on October 26 at around 2:10 am at night. The driver, a Turkish national, declared regular documents for the transported goods.

The customs officers selected the lorry for an X-ray inspection on the basis of risk analysis. The X-ray check identifies areas of unusual density in the cargo. In the following physical check, the customs officers found boxes full of cigarettes. They were concealed among the goods in the lorry.

А total of 1,120 packets, 22,400 pieces of cigarettes were found during other checks of two lorries and one car. The cigarettes were concealed in the cargo hold amid the goods declared and among the personal luggage of the passengers in the car. During the X-ray inspection and the subsequent physical control, a total of 820 packets of non-excise cigarettes of different brands were found in the declared goods at the cargo space of Turkish-registered lorries transporting goods to Germany and the United Kingdom. 300 packets of cigarettes were found in the personal luggage, among foods, of three passengers traveling to France in a passenger car driven by a French citizen.

In October, customs officers from the Southern Maritime Territorial Directorate and the Directorate for Customs Intelligence and Investigation seized over 960,000 pieces of smuggled cigarettes.