From: Europol
Press Release
- Tobacco Excise fraud
- 5 arrests in Poland
- 39 million cigarettes seized
The Gdańsk Bureau of the Polish Central Bureau of Investigation (Centralne Biuro Śledcze, CBŚP), together with the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Gdańsk and with the support of Europol arrested five suspects and seized over 39 million cigarettes.
Police officers from the CBŚP conducted since 2015 an investigation supervised by the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Gdańsk. The case concerns an international criminal group dealing with the illegal trade in cigarettes. The arrestees were charged for being members of an organised criminal group by the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Gdańsk.
Since 2015, Polish authorities have been sharing their intelligence from this case with British and Italian law enforcement agencies, and with Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency. As a result of this intensive cooperation the transport of 14 million cigarettes that were intended for the illegal market was stopped in the town of Caserta in Italy in 2015. Following this, over 13 million cigarettes of various brands were seized in Padua and a further 12 million in Trieste (both in Italy).
