Report: Tax authority confiscates large inventory of contraband cigarettes

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During its most recent investigation, Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Authority (NAV), with the help of local police, confiscated approximately 150 million contraband cigarettes and an entire fully functioning tobacco factory in Szigetszentmiklós, Hungarian online daily index.hu reported yesterday. 

This amount of seized contraband cigarette is considered large, not only by local but also by European standards. Last year NAV found a total of 43 million illegal cigarettes, index.hu recalled. NAV suspects that the tobacco factory was operated by a Romanian-Moldovan group. 

NAV was initially tipped off by local law enforcement last week regarding the tobacco factory. During the first visit, the authority discovered 47 million cigarettes, which took days to catalogue. Following this lead, NAV discovered a much larger factory where an additional 100 million illegal cigarettes were found, index.hu reports.

Given that counterfeit Moldovan tax stamps were printed on the cigarettes, it is believed that the contraband items were destined for export and not to be sold in Hungary. The five Moldovan and Romanian workers along with their Hungarian landlord have been arrested, index.reported.

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