OREANDA-NEWS. July 15, 2010. On customs station Giurgiulesti-Galat at Monday night was detained the largest contraband of cigarettes in the history of the Customs Service of Moldova. According to the Customs Service of Moldova, 650 thousand packs of cigarettes Regal, Super Kings and May Fair without excise stamps were transported in the MAN truck with Bulgarian numbers, belonging to transportation company of Bulgaria.

The citizen of Moldova was in the driver’s seat. According to presented documents, he was going en route from Ukraine to Bulgaria with wood cargo to the amount of about 20 thousand hryvnas. The detained batch of cigarettes is evaluated on the European market at USD4 million. According to the Customs Service, the driver was intended to avoid the scanning. This fact doesn’t exclude the participation of some customs officers.

Thus, four customs officers (including one participated in mobile scanning) are currently interrogated to substantiate the facts of their participation and further detention of identified persons for 72 hours. Besides, on Tuesday morning the MIA detained the other truck with cigarettes on Chisinau-Leuseni highway that passed customs export registration in Chisinau Customs House. According to accompanied documents he exported 20 tons of dry plaster blends to Bulgaria. The Customs Service started the investigation of this case also.

These attempts of contraband point to well-organized criminal network. The Customs authorities are assured that law enforcement bodies will struggle with it by joint actions. To make special examination were taken the samples of cigarettes in order to indentify their counterfeit. The customs authorities of Ukraine and Bulgaria were also informed in order to substantiate all facts of the case, determined as contraband on especially large scales. Persons participating in it are threatened with jail up to 10 years.