Border police officers and customs officers have discovered nearly 2,000 boxes of smuggled cigarettes in a ship's cabin, the Ministry of Interior reported, cited by BNT.
The vessel sailing under the Maltese flag arrived in Burgas on 29 August in the evening from Turkey. Officials from Port Bourgas Center Customs Point and Border Police performed incoming control checks of the vessel.
After certification of the documents, customs and border officers proceeded to a joint physical inspection of the ship, for which a request was filed by Border Police Bureau. In the process, in one of the ship's uninhabited cabins, they found 197 boxes containing a total of 1970 packs of unmarked cigarettes of four different trademarks, all with the inscription "For duty free sale only", with no excise label. Smuggled cigarettes were seized.
The captain of the ship, a Turkish citizen, has been drawn up a fine for violating the law on customs.