KIEV: Ukraine Customs officer nabbed Russian smuggler who smuggled lot of cigarettes. Russian smugglers came up with an original way to bring cigarettes into the West by hiding thousands of them inside hollowed out tree trunks.The cigarettes had been manufactured in Belarus and were heading to the address of a private company in Poland from where they were supposed to be shipped on to Germany and the UK.
But they were stopped by the Ukrainian custom officers at the Yagodyn checkpoint located on the Ukrainian side of Ukrainian-Polish border.
Ukrainian customs officials remove hundreds of packet of cigarettes which Russian smugglers tried to sneak across the border into Poland in hollowed out tree trunks
Ukrainian customs officials remove hundreds of packet of cigarettes which Russian smugglers tried to sneak across the border into Poland in hollowed out tree trunks
Fifty-five of the trunks had been hollowed out and their ends replaced to carry the massive illicit load
Fifty-five of the trunks had been hollowed out and their ends replaced to carry the massive illicit load
The cigarettes had been made in Belarus and were heading to the address of a private company in Poland
The cigarettes had been made in Belarus and were heading to the address of a private company in Poland
Border guard spokesman Arkhip Glazkov said: ‘As a result of a random check we discovered one of the trunks appeared to have been tampered with, and after looking more closely it was found that the tree trunk and been hollowed out and packed with cigarettes, and then the end of the trunk had been replaced to cover up the crime.
‘In fact it was almost impossible to see the difference, but officers noticed that some of the logs seemed incredibly light compared to the others, and it was then that they discovered the fraud.’
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