Ten people, including two in Belgium, were arrested during a European operation into the suspected smuggling of illegal cigarettes. The investigation started after a shipment of contraband was found in Belgium.
The German, Belgian and Dutch authorities uncovered the activities of the criminal group after a four-year investigation. This led to the arrest of ten people, two of whom were apprehended by police in Belgium, the European judicial agency Eurojust reported on Wednesday.
"The criminals are suspected of smuggling 150 containers of over 1.5 billion undeclared cigarettes," Eurojust said in a statement. "The cigarette smuggling resulted in a fiscal loss of around €550 million."
Alongside the two arrests made in Belgium, one person was apprehended in the Netherlands and seven in Germany. The authorities searched 17 premises and one vehicle.
Avoiding suspicion
The investigation began in May 2020, when three containers filled with undeclared cigarettes landed in Belgium. They were supposed to contain building materials destined for Germany, but customs officials discovered cigarettes in the load instead.
"The group tried to avoid suspicion by filling one of the three containers with the declared goods and presenting it correctly to customs," Eurojust noted. The building materials would then be loaded into the second and third containers to get them through customs.
Belgian and German customs services then launched a cross-border investigation with the support of the European Anti-Fraud Office. They discovered that the same method had been used to smuggle more than 150 containers full of cigarettes into the EU.
The criminals were also unloading cigarettes at warehouses in the Netherlands. The Dutch customs authorities joined the international investigation to take down the smuggling operation.
"The cigarettes were manufactured in Turkey and Iran, then exported to ports worldwide, reloaded and then smuggled into EU ports using false documents," Eurojust added.
In Belgium, the customs authorities, the Public Prosecutors' Offices of Namur and Charleroi, and the Federal Police of Namur and Charleroi took part in the operation.
