Officers of the Lower Silesian and Łódź National Revenue Administration, the Border Guard and the Central Bureau of Investigation of the Police, under the supervision of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Jelenia Góra, dismantled—together with officers of the Customs Office in Dresden and with the participation of the Görlitz Prosecutor’s Office—an organized criminal group involved in the illegal distribution of tobacco.
“Members of the criminal groups, equipped with forged documents, smuggled tobacco leaf into Poland, where tobacco-cutting facilities and cigarette factories were located. The excise products manufactured there were then illegally introduced onto the market, avoiding excise duty and VAT payments,” explains Agnieszka Rzeźnicka-Gniadek, spokesperson for the Lower Silesian KAS.
She adds:
The operation covered the Lower Silesian, Greater Poland, Łódź, Lublin and Subcarpathian Voivodeships, as well as Germany, where warehouses were searched. A total of 31 locations were searched, including 16 tobacco-cutting facilities from which tobacco leaf was transported.
The result? The services arrested 23 members of an organized criminal group. They seized more than 2.2 tonnes of smoking tobacco, nearly 5 tonnes of tobacco leaf and more than 350,000 cigarettes. (Drugs, cash, electronic equipment, passenger cars and equipment used to manufacture illegal cigarettes were also secured.)
Those arrested were charged with participation in an organized criminal group and committing fiscal offenses. The spokesperson adds: “The total State Treasury loss resulting from excise duty and VAT was determined to exceed PLN 60 million.”