460,000 pieces contraband cigarettes were discovered by customs officers hidden in metal profiles going from Turkey to France

Nearly 460,000 pieces contraband cigarettes were discovered by customs officers during an inspection of a truck entering the country from Turkey.

On 10.01.2024, a truck with a foreign registration arrives at the checkpoint. The driver, a Turkish citizen, presented documents for the transported goods – metal profiles from Turkey to France. The vehicle has been selected for a thorough customs inspection. In the course of control actions with specialized X-ray equipment, inspectors establish areas of suspicious density in the declared cargo. A physical check was carried out where the customs officers found that the cavities of the metal profiles were filled with cigarette boxes. A total of 22,900 undeclared boxes (458,000 pieces) of cigarettes from two commercial brands were found. The market value of the seized tobacco products is BGN 145,830.