Latvian customs officials discovered smuggled cigarettes in boxes of onions. The illegal cargo was found in 2 trucks during customs control at the Latvia-Russia border.
On October 1, 2025, a cargo truck registered in Lithuania entered the customs control post "Terekhovo" from the Russian side, carrying a load of fresh onions.
The truck was sent for inspection using X-ray equipment to control the cargo. After analyzing the images obtained from the scanning, the customs expert suspected that cigarettes were hidden in the cargo, in the onion boxes.
A dog handler with a service dog was invited, and the smuggling was discovered. Customs officials found that the boxes had a double compartment at the bottom.
A total of 1,826,920 cigarettes, or 91,346 packs of brands "Oris", "Cavallo", "Korona", "Queen", and "Dove", were found in the boxes with onions. Some of them had excise stamps from Belarus, some had Russian stamps, or were completely without stamps.
On October 4, a similar cargo was detained in Grebnevo. In the truck that entered Latvia from the Russian side, double boxes were also found, in which cigarettes were hidden.
In the latter case, 1,808,200 cigarettes or 90,410 packs of various brands – "Oris", "NZ", "Queen", "Dove", "Minsk" – were seized.
In both cases, a criminal case was initiated by the State Revenue Service's Department of Tax and Customs Police for the established crime under part three of Article 190 of the Criminal Law for large-scale smuggling.
