Major Operation Against Cigarette Smuggling: Balloons, Cars, and Hundreds of Kilograms of Tobacco

Officers from the Border Guard post in Kuźnica busted a group involved in an unusual practice of smuggling goods across the border. In the area of Nowa Rozedranka in Sokółka County, three people were detained who used meteorological balloons to transport cigarettes from the territory of Belarus. In the suspects' car and their places of residence, 6,000 packs of cigarettes and accessories used for navigation and attaching contraband were secured. The court decided to impose a three-month detention on the detainees, and the case has an additional dimension related to the act on countering support for aggression against Ukraine. Simultaneously, actions were carried out in the south of the country. In Rybnik, police officers from the department combating economic crime seized over 300 kilograms of illegal cut tobacco, which a 62-year-old resident of Katowice was transporting in a delivery van. It is estimated that this operation prevented a loss to the budget of over 500,000 zloty. Meanwhile, in the Opole region, officers of the National Revenue Administration in cooperation with the police discovered illegal goods with a market value of nearly a quarter of a million zloty. All these events fit into the trend of intensified controls at borders and within the country. Smugglers are seeking new methods, such as the mentioned balloons, to bypass physical barriers on the eastern border. Contraband tobacco remains one of the main challenges for revenue authorities due to high profit margins and price differences in excise goods between Poland and countries outside the European Union. The involved services announce further, intensive actions to limit the gray market. Since the escalation of the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border in 2021 and the construction of a physical barrier, criminal groups are increasingly turning to unmanned technologies and balloons to smuggle prohibited goods. In Bobrowniki, officers of the Podlaskie KAS secured another 1,100 packs without Polish excise stamps, valuing them at 23,500 zloty. A 60-year-old man heard charges under the Fiscal Penal Code. The scale of detected crimes shows that the fight against illegal tobacco is being conducted in multiple ways, involving specialized uniformed units across the country.