Officers of the Border Guard from the post in Wrocław-Strachowice, police officers from the Katowice branch of the Central Police Investigation Bureau and officers of the Lower Silesian Customs and Tax Office jointly conducted an investigation into the illegal production, smuggling and sale of tobacco products without Polish excise-duty markings. – On the basis of the evidence collected by the officers, the National Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice, which supervised the proceedings, filed an indictment with the Katowice District Court against 7 members of an organized criminal group involved not only in the illegal production, smuggling and sale of tobacco products, but also in the sale of drugs and steroids – explains Major of the Border Guard Joanna Konieczniak, press spokesperson for the Nadodrzański Border Guard Unit.
She adds: – The perpetrators were charged with committing numerous offenses set out, among other places, in the Criminal Code, the Fiscal Penal Code, the Act on Counteracting Drug Addiction, pharmaceutical law and the Act on the Manufacture of Ethyl Alcohol and the Production of Tobacco Products.
The investigation’s findings show that the group members operated throughout Poland. The operation mainly involved processing tobacco leaves and subsequently selling them without the required excise-duty markings.
Moreover, the members of the organized criminal group created a closed network of interconnected individuals who performed defined roles: manufacturer, warehouse worker, supplier, transporter or recipient of tobacco products. The Border Guard said: – The perpetrators put excise goods worth a total of 80 million zlotys into circulation.
The court will soon decide their future.