CUSTOMS officers in Slovakia discovered the country’s largest facility for producing untaxed cigarettes in recent years when they found three illegal machines for making cigarettes, a huge amount of tobacco and already manufactured cigarettes in a building in the town of Pezinok in western Slovakia on February 20, the SITA newswire reported.
The customs police detained the Bulgarian owner of the company and land where the machines, tobacco and cigarettes were found.
The customs service’s Criminal Office had been seeking the source of the illegally-produced cigarettes since last December.
The customs service reported that it estimated that nearly 8,754,000 cigarettes, or 43,770 cartons, had been produced at the facility before the bust and that excise taxes of €1.2 million could have been evaded.
If convicted, those involved in the cigarette racket could face prison sentences of three to eight years.
