Latvia said Monday its police and border guards had seized nearly 300 million counterfeit cigarettes and arrested more than 30 people suspected in involvement in an illegal distribution network spanning borders.
“This is one of the biggest such operations against illegal tobacco production over the last years in Europe,” Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis told state television.
Border guard chief Guntis Pujats told reporters the 32 people arrested included six Latvians, one Russian and several Ukrainians.
He said Latvia had worked with British and European law enforcement through Europol and Eurojust to investigate the operation.
Police chief Armands Ruks said the network’s mastermind, whose identity was not released, was arrested earlier this year.
This led investigators “in several countries to uncover the entire illegal tobacco distribution network spanning from Latvia to Spain, Scandinavia, the UK and other European countries”, he told reporters.
He said the counterfeit cigarettes were hidden in trucks and on ferries and taken across borders as “Latvia is too small to consume hundreds of millions of cigarettes”.
“Real estate and collections of classic cars have been seized in Spain, the UK and Latvia, which is where the organisers of the scheme invested their illegal profits,” Ruks added.
Authorities from the Baltic state also seized around 47 tonnes of shredded tobacco leaves.
Add Comment