Polotsk border guards thwarted another attempt to smuggle contraband

On the night of December 2, Polotsk border guards detected a raft floating on the Western Dvina River. At 00:35, during a routine inspection, the border patrol discovered a raft made of interconnected boxes of cigarettes, equipped with a motor and a GPS tracker. Thus, smugglers intended to transport a large batch of cigarettes to Latvia using the river current.

After detection, the raft was towed to the shore.

The cigarettes will be handed over to customs officers. The quantity of cigarettes and their estimated value are being determined. An investigation is underway.

As of December 3, this is the fourth attempt to smuggle cigarettes in this manner in 2013. In total, Polotsk border guards have thwarted 115 attempts to move tobacco products across the Belarusian-Latvian and Belarusian-Lithuanian sections of the State Border this year, seizing over 681,000 packs of cigarettes with a total value exceeding 3 billion 655 million rubles.

Press Service of the Polotsk Border Detachment