On the 26th of May Customs Criminal Board of the State Revenue Service (hereinafter - SRS) during the verification of information about possible storage of smuggled excise goods, in the territory of a company in Rezekne city it was discovered more than 18 tons of tobacco and large amount of subjects necessary for production of cigarettes without certificates of origin. Criminal procedure for offence to national economy is started.
Discovered load of tobacco in the amount of 18 240 kilos was packed into 152 cardboard boxes. In the territory there also were five palettes or 45 cardboard boxes with filters for cigarettes, 11 palettes with semi-finished manufacture of cardboard boxes, four palettes with 312 foil reels, one palette with 205 metal tobacco cutting knife, and one palette with the parts for equipment, certifying that it was planned to produce cigarettes from the tobacco.
Experts from SRS Customs Criminal Board are of the opinion that from the given amount of tobacco and the articles used for production of cigarettes, it would be possible to produce 26 to 35 millions of cigarettes, depending on the amount of add-ons to be added to the tobacco. Such a number of cigarettes is possible to to get into two large trucks. Realization of the amount of cigarettes would make damage to the state budget in amount of 1,5 to two million lats.
Next to the articles described above there were also two palettes or 80 boxes with computer processor cases, that, probably was tailored to use as an ambush during transportation of produced cigarettes. SRS experts are of the opinion that majority of the cigarettes it was planned to import outside the territory of Latvia in a hidden way.
Criminal procedure was started on the 27th of May according to Chapter 19 of the Criminal Law for offence to national economy.
Articles discovered in the territory of the company were delivered to State Guaranty Agency.
As of the moment for the interests of investigation more detailed information has not been disclosed.
01.06.2010.
SRS Communications Division
(Phone: 67028691, 67028695, 29350642)