2016-03-15 15:33 update: 2016-03-15, 15:33
Police since the beginning of the year have seized seven illegal cigarette plants countrywide, securing over 25 million cigarettes and 43 tonnes of tobacco. Police say the resulting budget losses may have reached over PLN 50 million.
Most recently over 10 million cigarettes and 6.5 tonnes of tobacco were seized in the night from Monday to Tuesday in a plant in Zabrze, south Poland, following last week's discovery of production and packaging machinery in a nearby depot.
Over the past year police closed down nine cigarette plants (4 in 2014).
According to the police illegal cigarette producers in Poland were modernising and frequently used state-of-the-art production and packaging machinery. Much of the production equipment is brought legally to Poland from the Baltic states as pencil production lines. A large part of the produce is smuggled to other EU countries.
Police figures confirm that domestic organised crime is increasingly turning to illegal cigarette production and sale. (PAP)
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