SIS officers, together with Customs Service officers and PCCOCS prosecutors, annihilated an attempt to smuggle out of the country through Costești customs post – approximately six million cigarettes of various commercial brands with domestic excise stamps.
On Wednesday morning, August 10, a truck carrying wood charcoal from Ukraine to Romania drove in the control area of the Costești customs post. As the truck was in transit, it had a customs seal on the trailer – the contraband was disguised there.
Based on the operative information, customs officers conducted a detailed physical check and scanned the trailer. The resulted pictures raised suspicions regarding the nature of the declared and transported goods.
Law enforcement officers ordered the removal of the customs seal and checked the cargo compartment. As a result they found 600 boxes with 299,996 packs of cigarettes with a local excise stamp, disguised along the tarpaulin, behind the bags.
After detaining the truck, law enforcement officers decided to carry out searches at a warehouse in the Edineț district, where the same type of charcoal was found that was legally transported in the truck. There, officers found another 100,000 cigarette packages, containing two million cigarettes of the same brand, which would have also been illegally transported.
At the time of arrest, the driver, a 59-year-old man, a citizen of Ukraine, refused to provide information to the investigative team and avoided making statements. He was detained for 72 hours for criminal prosecution actions. The outcomes of these procedures will make it possible to decide on preventive measure. Until then, according to law, the man is presumed innocent.
As regards the goods and means of transport, they have been seized, until a decision is made on this case.
PCCOCS prosecutors jointly with the Customs Service and SIS undertake the full range of measures necessary to establish all the persons involved in this crime.
