Customs found 6.6 million untaxed cigarettes in a truck during a check in Rotterdam on Friday. A 49-year-old driver from Poland has been arrested. He is suspected of cigarette smuggling, after which the FIOD has been called in.
The cigarettes were presumably destined for the British market.
The FIOD conducts criminal investigations under the supervision of the Functional Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Tens of thousands of kilograms
Last month, a total of more than 47,000 kilos of illegal tobacco was seized at two locations in Weert and one in Margraten. In Weert, the tobacco cutting plant was found in a shed. The second warehouse in Weert was used as a warehouse for tobacco. In Margraten it turned out that there were 160 pallets in a warehouse with materials for making and packaging cigarettes.
Increasingly
Large batches of illegal cigarettes are increasingly being found in the Netherlands. In November last year, the FIOD found 30 million cigarettes in a warehouse in Breda. In November, the Public Prosecution Service also demanded prison sentences of five years and fines of 100,000 euros against four suspects of very large-scale trade in illegal tobacco. It concerns four men aged 60, 48, 59 and 53 from the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.
