Officers of the Territorial Inspectorate of the Border Police Sighetu Marmației (Romania) detected and seized nearly 30 thousand packs of cigarettes worth more than 2 million hryvnias (75 thousand USD) near the state border with Ukraine.
Cigarettes were smuggled from Ukraine using a small plane, possibly a drone.
A lot of cigarettes ‘Credo’ TM were intended for the ‘black market’. This brand is produced at the Grodno Tobacco Factory (Belarus) and is one of the most popular in the segment of the illegal tobacco market in the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. By some estimates, the products of the Belarusian factory (brands NZ, Fest, Credo, Minsk) occupy a quarter of the “black market” of tobacco products in Russia.
The cost of one pack of such cigarettes is about 0.5 USD.
