Another detention for tobacco and fuel smuggling and corruption

Officers from the Border Guard Post in Ustka, in the Kętrzyn poviat, detained another person involved in smuggling cigarettes and fuels. So far, 15 persons suspected of smuggling and 13 officers of the Customs and Tax Service, who have been accused of accepting financial benefits, have been arrested and charged in this case.

During the detention of the 56-year-old in one of the cars, Border Guard officers revealed over 351,000. cigarettes without excise duty worth 260 thousand. zloty. The man was taken to the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Gdańsk, where he was charged with the smuggling of cigarettes and fuel across the Polish-Russian border in Bezledy, the handling of stolen goods and the purchase and storage of illegal cigarettes, which had been secured during his arrest. At the request of the prosecutor, the court applied a preventive measure to the suspect in the form of temporary detention for a period of two months.

The detention was related to the investigation conducted in the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Gdańsk concerning an organized criminal group operating in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie and Pomorskie Voivodeships. This group dealt with the import from the Kaliningrad Oblast of tobacco products without Polish excise stamps and fuel. The investigation also concerns the granting of financial benefits to public officials, employees of the Customs and Tax Service, who perform activities at the Polish-Russian border crossing in Bezledy.

In the ongoing investigation, a total of 15 people suspected of smuggling tobacco products and fuels were detained and charged, as well as 13 officers of the Customs and Tax Service, who were accused of accepting financial benefits in exchange for refusing to inspect the car and the transported luggage. Preventive measure in the form of pre-trial detention was applied to 8 people. The findings of the investigators show that during the period of the group’s operation, excise goods in the form of approximately 12 million cigarettes, 3,900 kg of cut tobacco and 1,800 kg of dried material were illegally introduced into the territory of the Republic of Poland.