Officers of the Customs and Tax Service from the Lower Silesian Customs and Tax Office in Wrocław, together with officers of the CBŚP from the Jelenia Góra department and supported by officers of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Customs and Tax Office in Toruń, carried out operations targeting crime connected with the illegal production and trade in excise goods.
– During the operations in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, the services searched a property containing a former poultry slaughterhouse building and adjacent farm buildings – explains Agnieszka Rzeźnicka-Gniadek, spokesperson for the Lower Silesian KAS.
The result? Officers seized a fully equipped, professional industrial cigarette production line. It included, among other things, a packing machine, a tobacco-cutting machine, a tobacco dryer, two industrial generators and production components such as filters, packaging, tapes and films.
At the property, officers seized illegal goods worth over PLN 12 million:
- over 5.3 million cigarettes worth more than PLN 4.7 million,
- over 6.2 tonnes of dried tobacco and 4.2 tonnes of tobacco waste worth more than PLN 6.4 million,
- over 2.4 tonnes of cut tobacco worth more than PLN 1.6 million.
Five vehicles of various makes, used to conduct the illegal trade in excise goods, were seized.
Spokesperson:
If the illegal tobacco products had reached the market, estimated losses to the state budget would have amounted to over PLN 18 million.
The services detained nine people, who were charged with participating in an organized criminal group, an offense punishable by up to eight years in prison. The Inowrocław District Court ordered the suspects to be remanded in temporary custody.