On December 5, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. More than 200 blocks of ownerless cigarettes were found on the Minsk-Riga train, Denis Glebko, head of the press service of the Polotsk Border Guard Detachment, told a BELTA correspondent. At the "Bigosovo" checkpoint at the railway station, during departure processing on the Minsk-Riga train, servicemen of the Polotsk Border Guard Detachment, together with a customs inspector, discovered 219 blocks of Vip and Winston cigarettes with Belarusian excise stamps hidden in one of the carriages. The owner of the goods did not appear. The cigarettes were seized by customs officers, their estimated value amounted to Br8.9 million. On the same day, servicemen of the Polotsk Border Guard Detachment discovered two smugglers' caches with 12,000 packs of cigarettes in the Braslav district. Near the state border, border guards noticed Volkswagen and Chrysler cars with Belarusian license plates. Soon, in a forest area, 1.5 km from the border line, three citizens of Belarus without documents were detained: two residents of Miory and one resident of Braslav. Near the place of their detention, a cache was found containing 12 boxes of cigarettes with Belarusian excise stamps. During further operational-search activities on the outskirts of the forest, another cache with the same amount of cigarettes was discovered. A little later, two more residents of the Miory district were detained on suspicion of involvement in the smuggling of cigarettes. All 24 boxes with 12,000 packs of cigarettes were confiscated, and an administrative process has been initiated. According to the State Border Committee, over the past weekend, Belarusian border guards prevented 22 attempts to smuggle tobacco products, 17 of which were through vehicle checkpoints. As of December 5, servicemen of the Polotsk Border Guard Detachment have recorded 105 cases of cigarette seizures since the beginning of the year. 1.3 million packs of cigarettes with a total value of Br2.9 billion were seized. -0-

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