On February 17, acting on the orders of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Jelenia Góra, officers of the Border Guard Post in Zgorzelec and other Border Guard units arrested five people in the Lower Silesian and Podlaskie Voivodeships who are suspected of participating in a criminal group involved in smuggling tobacco products without Polish excise stamps.
“As a result of the searches, Border Guard officers uncovered and seized a number of vehicles of various makes, computer equipment, several dozen telephones, money, as well as other items serving as assets securing the proceedings and material evidence in the investigation,” prosecutor Tomasz Czułowski, press spokesperson for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Jelenia Góra, lists. “It was established that the tobacco products entered Poland from Lithuania and were then transported to Lower Silesia in vans. From there, after being repacked into passenger vehicles, they were distributed to buyers in the Czech Republic and Germany.”
In August 2019, more than 1.8 million cigarettes bearing Belarusian excise stamps were found in one of the seized vehicles… (This prevented a reduction in public-law liabilities related to excise duty, VAT and customs duties totaling more than PLN 2 million.)
After being brought before the District Prosecutor’s Office in Jelenia Góra, the men were charged with participating in an organized criminal group and smuggling excise goods in the form of cigarettes. The court remanded four of them in temporary custody for three months. The fifth was placed under a property bond, police supervision and a travel ban.
(At an earlier stage of the investigation, a resident of Lubań was also charged in the case. The man has been in temporary custody since January 2020.)
“The suspects are residents of the Podlaskie and Lower Silesian Voivodeships, aged between 32 and 44,” prosecutor T. Czułowski adds. “For the fiscal offenses committed and participation in a criminal group, they face prison sentences of up to 5 years and up to 7 years and 6 months, respectively.”
The investigation is ongoing and may expand.