Brussels, 16/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - With the help of inspectors from OLAF, the European anti-fraud office, the Polish police has put an end to the activities of an international gang attempting to flood the market with millions of illegal cigarettes. During the raid near Warsaw, 32 people were arrested and machines and material used to make fake cigarettes were seized, together with 50 tonnes of tobacco, OLAF announced in a press release published on Tuesday 15 March. A consignment of nearly 5 million cigarettes, which had already been loaded onto a lorry for distribution, was also seized.
Shortly after the discovery of this illegal cigarette factory in Poland, four people were arrested in Germany and 70 tonnes of tobacco intercepted in Lithuania.
The director-general of OLAF, Giovanni Kessler, congratulated the Polish police and the customs services of Germany and Lithuania on their good work, stating that the criminals could have produced around 120 million cigarettes with the quantities of tobacco seized, representing potential losses to the EU taxpayer of €24 million. “If the counterfeit cigarette factory had continued to run, losses to the EU and member states budgets would potentially have been €6 million a week”, said Kessler.
An estimated €10 billion in taxes and duties are lost to the budgets of the EU and member states each year as a result of cigarette smuggling and counterfeiting, according to OLAF. (L.C./transl.fl)