On July 31, 2025, at the "Slovyanka" checkpoint on the Ukrainian-Hungarian border, employees of the Transcarpathian customs exposed another attempt to illegally move tobacco products outside Ukraine. The customs press service reported this.
While inspecting a freight train bound for Hungary, customs officers noticed a cargo declared as “iron ore pellets.” After a thorough inspection, they discovered 24 cardboard boxes wrapped in black plastic under a half-meter layer of ore. The boxes contained more than 10,000 packs of cigarettes of the Compliment and Lifa brands without excise stamps.
The cigarettes were hidden with the express purpose of avoiding customs control. The entire tobacco cargo was seized. It will be handed over to law enforcement for further investigation.
The Transcarpathian Customs has already sent a report on the detected offense to the Territorial Department of the Bureau of Economic Security. These are signs of a crime under Article 204 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - illegal manufacture, storage, sale or transportation for the purpose of selling excisable goods.
The investigation is currently ongoing. Law enforcement officers are investigating all the circumstances of the case, including who exactly organized the attempt to export cigarettes and how they managed to hide the tobacco under a load of ore.
