Produced more than 50 thousand packs a day: Lviv police officers liquidated the activities of an underground tobacco shop

29.12.2021 17:37

The cost of seized cigarettes, raw materials and equipment is almost UAH 20 million.

Operatives of the departments of strategic investigations of Lviv and Ternopil regions together with the investigators of the Lviv region police exposed the activities of an underground workshop for the industrial production of counterfeit tobacco products.

To conduct illegal activities, the organizers used non-residential premises in one of the cities of the Ternopil region. The premises were equipped with industrial lines for the production of tobacco products, as well as a diesel generator for the purpose of conspiring the use of large amounts of electricity. For the uninterrupted manufacture of counterfeit cigarettes, production was provided by tobacco, printing, filters and excise tax stamps. The finished products were sold on the territory of Lviv, Ternopil and Transcarpathian regions.

Yesterday, December 28, police conducted sanctioned searches and seized two industrial lines for the production of cigarettes, five million excise stamps with signs of counterfeiting, more than 40 thousand packs of finished counterfeit tobacco products, 10 tons of tobacco, “rough” records and more. The value of the seized reaches 20 million hryvnias.

At the production site there were six people, three of them - directly engaged in the manufacture of counterfeit products.

After carrying out all necessary examinations, the issue of notifying all involved persons of suspicion of committing crimes provided for in Part 2 of Art. 204 (illegal manufacture, storage, sale or transportation for the purpose of marketing excisable goods), article 229 (illegal use of a mark for goods and services, brand name will be resolved., qualified indication of the origin of the goods) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.