SSR operatives of the National Police exposed a large-scale “tobacco underground”
Despite the war and difficult times in the economy, the clandestines strive not to lose their own niche and the opportunity to earn money, offering the people a variety of fakes and fakes. In particular, tobacco products are traditionally in the sphere of interests of craftsmen.
However, as Andriy Rubel, the head of the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police, noted, law enforcement agencies have recently managed to significantly minimize the activities of shadow “tobacco factories” throughout the country, thanks to measures specifically focused on this problem within the framework of the “Excise” operation.
In particular, the indicative scheme in this sense was discovered in Poltava region by employees of the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police. There they first managed to eliminate the underground workshop for the preparation of raw materials for further use in the production of tobacco products in the fall. In the household of one of the organizers of the criminal group, industrial equipment was even installed for this. And on another of the participants of the criminal conspiracy, an individual entrepreneur was registered in order to disguise the activities of the underground workshop. It was officially legalized under such activities as growing tobacco. But even here they decided to save, without taking the proper license for such “agronomy”. In addition, the merchants did not have their own land plots and the opportunity to grow such “smoking potions” in industrial volumes.
Instead, dealers have established tobacco purchase channels in other regions of Ukraine. Therefore, the operatives further promoted their further production chain. The search led police officers from Poltava region to the well-known city of Priluki in the Chernihiv region, known in the cigarette industry. In this city, they discovered another underground workshop, where they manufactured final products for further sale.
The disclosure has recently ended with the complete elimination of all links of the aforementioned unauthorized production. Operatives of the Directorate of Strategic Investigations and investigators of the regional police with employees of the prosecutor's office seized from there 20 tons of raw materials, equipment, almost 600 thousand cigarette blanks and two cars totaling almost 8 million hryvnias. More than 2.3 million hryvnias in various currencies were seized from the defendants.
It should be noted that two of the organizers of the workshop in Poltava region have already received a court sentence - three years in prison with a delay of sentence. The case against their accomplice is currently being heard by the court.
National Police of Ukraine
