Bulgaria's police had confiscated 4 300 master boxes of cigarettes with expired excise labels, the Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, informs Friday.

The operations was carried out in the village of Sadovo while the amount of the contraband cigarettes equals the load of 5 heavy duty trucks – several millions of cigarettes.

The excise labels have expired on March 31, 2010 – the date Bulgaria introduced the new, higher excise on cigarettes.

3 individuals have been arrested, including the alleged ringleader, who has a long wrap sheet. 100 bottles of illegal vodka and fake excise labels were wound during the raid of his house.

Earlier on Friday, 11 people were arrested in another special police operation codenamed “The Plastics” targeting ATM scams.

Operation “Cigarettes” was launched on May 28.

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