Brussels, 11/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has welcomed the fact that, in Dublin on 11 March 2013, the leader of a gang of cigarette smugglers was found guilty and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. The racket was dismantled after a raid, in 2011, on one of the largest illegal cigarette factories ever discovered, in Poland. This was the conclusion of an international investigation by the German, Polish, Belgian, Latvian, Estonian and Swiss customs services under the coordination of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). The gang, which manufactured cigarettes in illegal factories in Poland and Moldova, selling them in the EU since end 2005, evaded more than €50 million in taxes while smuggling 1,200 tonnes of tobacco between 2006 and 2011.
The investigation allowed a highly complex illegal trading route to be discovered, supplying the Polish cigarette factory in tobacco. Between January 2006 and March 2011, over 100 containers (122,000 kilos) of smoking tobacco were imported from Brazil and the Arab Emirates to the EU via Lithuania. The containers were declared as containing raw tobacco (not subject to excise) intended for Armenia. The tobacco, however, was unloaded in Poland and used for the illegal production of cigarettes. Real tobacco waste was then transported by lorry to Ukraine and taken by boat to Belgium to be disposed of. In parallel, an equal quantity of smoking tobacco was declared as tobacco waste, carried by maritime means from India and Belgium via Ukraine to Moldova, then used for the production of contraband cigarettes. (FG/transl.jl)