Video: Huge amount of smuggled cigarettes detected at the Bechet Border Crossing Point

Huge amount of smuggled cigarettes detected at the Bechet Border Crossing Point

Romanian Border Police officers within Bechet Border Crossing Point in cooperation with custom inspectors within D.R.A.O.V. Craiova detected in a vehicle which transported coffee from Greece to Latvia over 150,000 unstamped packages of cigarettes, Royal Business brand.

Thus, on 12th of July 2011, around 19.30, at Bechet Border Crossing Point a Polish citizen, L.W.K., 43 years old, driving a truck registered in Poland came to the check point in order to enter Romania.

On the occasion of border check, the driver presented the documents accompanying the goods out of which resulted that he was supposed to transport 8.918 metal boxes with coffee beans inside, weighting 17.000 kg., from Athens - Greece to Latvia.

Being suspicious on the content of the metal boxes, Border Police officers together with custom inspectors within D.R.A.O.V. Craiova proceeded to a thorough check of the truck. Thus, the fact that inside the boxes, among corn beans, unstamped packages of cigarettes, Royals Business brand, were hidden resulted. The number of the smuggled packages was about 150,000.

The mean of transportation was asset by the custom inspectors in order to be sent to D.R.A.O.V. Craiova for a complete physic check of the cargo compartment and for inventorying the entire amount of cigarettes.

The cigarettes are going to be asset also by the D.R.A.V.O. Craiova in accordance with the law provisions and prior acts of criminal investigation in terms of the offense of qualified smuggling, of presenting to custom authorities unreal documents, possessing excisable goods without being stamped over the limit of 10,000 cigarettes were drawn by Border Police officers, imposed legal measures going to be taken at the end of the investigations.

   

Statistics regarding Romanian Border Police activity in the last 24 hours

In the last 24 hours, in the competence areas - meaning border crossing points and "green border" - Border Police officers detected:

• 43 illegal deeds (12 crimes and 31 penalties) committed by Romanian and foreign citizens;
• the amount of penalties reaches approximately 9,625 lei;
• undeclared goods (which were to be smuggled into the country), which exceeded the customs’ legal provisions or were suspected as being counterfeit with a total value of 166,000 lei, were detected;
• the flow of passengers and means of transportation at the border crossing points was about 117,500 people, both at the entry and at the exit and over 30,600 means of transportation.
  14 foreign citizens were refused entry due to the fact that they did not meet the entry requirements and 11 Romanian citizens were not allowed to exit Romania out of various legal grounds.