A professional cigarette production line has been uncovered in Zgorzelec County, Lower Silesia. – This was where officers from the Border Guard Post in Tuplice, supported by officers from the Operations Security Division, entered one of the previously selected properties and secured a machine and knives for cutting tobacco, a tobacco dryer and 1.6 tonnes of dried tobacco – lists Border Guard Major Joanna Konieczniak, press spokesperson for the Nadodrzański Border Guard Unit. – The value of the secured equipment and tobacco is PLN 880,000.
Two Poles, aged 33 and 38, were also detained; they were found producing cigarettes.
What happens next in the case?
Preparatory proceedings are under way. The detained men were questioned as suspects. They face a heavy fine and possibly imprisonment.
The officers say:
Since the beginning of this year, officers from the Border Guard Post in Tuplice have detained 13 tonnes of tobacco worth more than PLN 5.5 million.
They add:
If the detained illegal goods had entered the black market, the State Treasury would have lost nearly PLN 6 million in unpaid taxes.