From: Panteres
It is about 200 tons of fine-cut tobacco and 50 million counterfeit cigarettes: A big cases against smugglers in Hanau could be a fiasco for the investigators. When the customs determined unlawful?
From the stage of the Paul Hindemith Hall in Hanau Convention Centre, the presiding judge Andreas White overlooks a black block 41 defense lawyers in their robes, in between 20 defendants and six interpreters, along with prosecutors and representatives of the co-plaintiff, all good at everything 70 persons.
The trial, running here is a drama with many actors in many acts. It involves almost 200 tonnes of fine -cut tobacco and 50 million counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes with a loss of around 24 million euros for the tax collector’s office.
For more than a year of this process is, and is becoming increasingly clear: What the prosecution had hailed as’ major blow to the international trade of untaxed cigarettes’, could fail in court. This is due to the partial probably unlawful actions of customs officials.
