During a raid on a hotel in Zevenbergen, 11,000 illegal cigarettes and illegal vapes were seized on Tuesday. The municipality of Moerdijk reported this on Thursday. In our province, large parties of illegal cigarettes are often seized. For example, Bladel once an illegal cigarette factory was canceled where a million cigarettes were made a day. And in a shed in Roosendaal, cigarettes were found between the hobby horses, unicorns and dinosaurs. We list the most remarkable finds for you.
Only this year at least eight large parties illegal cigarettes were discovered by authorities such as the Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FOID) and the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA). In June, for example, the FIOD caught two Polish men who were busy in the border village of Putte to transfer nine million illegal cigarettes to a truck.
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The fiscal investigation service tracked down the men through a tip from abroad. The cigarettes were probably intended for trade abroad. The men were caught red -handed when they were overloading the cigarettes from one truck to the other. The two were arrested and the tobacco was seized.
8 million cigarettes
A year earlier, eight million illegal cigarettes were found in a shed in Someren. If this party had arrived on the Dutch market, the Dutch state had missed more than 3.6 million euros in excise duty.
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There were 22 pallets in the shed with 7,960,000 cigarettes from different brands without an excise seal. Customs seized and destroyed the cigarettes.
Rental car
Two men thought the authorities thought they would be oversmart in June last year by transporting drugs and illegal cigarettes in a rental car. The two were stopped on the A2 at the Best exit, agents found a kilo of XTC and a thousand packs of illegal cigarettes.
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The men from Amsterdam were arrested and the drugs and cigarettes were seized. The police in Amsterdam then searched the house of one of the suspects in that city. A kilo of heroin and 27 LSD sheets were also found there.
Hobby horses
A very remarkable find was made in January last year in a shed in Roosendaal. Agents were looking for a stolen car there and came out in a shed full of illegal cigarettes, stolen things and a box with hobby horses, unicorns and dinosaurs.
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Not paying the excise duty on the cigarettes turned out not to be the only violation. The hobby horses and hugs were also stolen, just like a lot of tools and the car in the shed. Three men aged 28, 33 and 34 who were present in the shed were arrested.
Illegal cigarette factory
In November last year, an illegal cigarette factory was closed in a business premises on the Ambachtsweg in Bladel. At the raid, more than 30,000 kilos of tobacco was found, with which around 30 million cigarettes could be made. The factory was full of machines to make cigarettes. The FIOD assumed that a million cigarettes a day could be made in the factory.
If the factory was not discovered, it would have been an expensive joke for the Dutch state. In addition to the tobacco, another 11 million cigarettes were found in the factory. If they were deposited on the Dutch market, the state had missed 8 million euros in excise duty. The cigarettes were seized and burned in a combustion oven.
