Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Transport

SRS Customs Criminal Administration experts allow that such large quantities of cigarettes suggest that most likely the freight were not intended only for the Latvian market, but partly also for the Scandinavian countries and other EU member states.

In both cases a criminal proceeding has been initiated. According to approximate calculations by Customs Criminal Administration specialists, the loss to the state budget in unpaid taxes resulting from these crimes amounts to LVL 412,168.

The SRS indicated that on February 4, Customs Criminal Administration officers had been carrying out a warehouse inspection in Daugavpils when they found a locked-up "Volvo" freight vehicle and a trailer, both with Lithuanian number plates. The vehicle's driver could not be found.

In the presence of invited witnesses, a extensive customs check was performed on the vehicle, in the course of which the SRS officers noticed that the inner dimensions of the freight container were visibly smaller than its outer dimensions; therefore, the decision was taken to break through its front panel.

Having done so, the SRS officers discovered that double walls had been set up inside the trailer, concealing a hidden compartment containing almost three million cigarettes with Russian excise stamps – 2,519,120 of the "Saint George" brand and 416,000 "Jin Ling".

In the same warehouse, the customs check also found packages containing a total of 5,340 liters of "Karolina" vegetable oil without certificates of origin, various materials and equipment for the preparation and labeling of cardboard packaging, as well as cardboard packages labeled "Baltijskaja tabacnaja fabrika; filter cigaretes; 'Jin Ling'."

In the view of SRS Customs Criminal Administration specialists, the vegetable oil was most likely used as a cover for the illegally imported cigarettes, with the other equipment used for packaging them.

The following day, February 5, SRS Customs Criminal Administration mobile unit officers pulled over a "Mercedes Benz" freight vehicle with Lithuanian number plates on the Valmiera-Cesis road in Priekuli region.

According to the documents, the vehicle should have been carrying "Batman" ice-cream; however, following an extensive search of the vehicle, the customs officers found that the ice-cream freight accounted for only the first two rows of pallets and the upper part of the remaining pallets; the remaining part of the freight consisted of almost three million contraband cigarettes – 2,475,000 "Jin Ling" cigarettes with Russian excise stamps and 478,000 "L&M" cigarettes without excise stamps.

The vehicle's driver, a Lithuanian citizen, was arrested, and on February 7 this year was ordered to pay bail by Riga Zemgale District Court.