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Every day 30 thousand people come to Lithuania. tons of fertilizer Belaruskalij. The attention of politicians and officials has increased significantly in recent months, when the flow of migrants to Lithuania began to flow, and the country’s authorities called it a hybrid attack by Aliaksandr Lukashenko.
The volume of smuggled and seized smuggling trains is growing rapidly, and the number of illegal cigarettes caught this year is the same as in all of 2020. Lithuanian officials do not yet have X-ray systems, so they inspect the cargo by hand.
After placing the carbines on the metal frames of the car, they open the openings of the cars one by one. When opened, they give off an unpleasant smell of potassium chloride fertilizers, and when they light them up, they peek inside the wagon.
When looking inside the wagon, officers pay attention to how the spilled fertilizer looks, or looks normal, with the pile on top, or if the top is aligned. The second option is one of the main signs that illegal goods are in the wagon, because smugglers cannot restore the characteristics of the fertilizer normally discharged by burying smokers in bulk cargo.
Photo by Vidmantas Balkūnas / 15 min photo / Customs officer inspects a freight wagon with fertilizers at Stasylai train station (Šalčininkai district)
If there is a suspicion of the shape of the bulk materials or any other sign is noticed, officials inspect the car in detail: insert a metal tip into the bulk materials and check that it does not bounce off the illegal smoking boxes hidden in the legal burden. .
On August 5, the inspection was organized by the Criminal Customs Service and a mobile phone company was called for help. The inspection of a formation at Stasylos lasted about an hour. This time no contraband was found. These cargo inspections are the daily job of customs officials and have become much more intensive recently due to the increase in smuggling.
“It just came to our attention then. But most of the time we check based on some information or selectively, but now that smuggling is very intensive, we will do almost all wagon inspections on many trains,” said Darius Žvironas , Director General of the Customs Department.
Fertilizers are a common cover for smuggling
The Belaruskalij fertilizer cargo streams in Lithuania are one of the most popular places where smugglers hide their cargo. According to data from the country’s customs officials, between 30 and 40 percent of all contraband caught by rail is detected in rail transport.
Belaruskalij fertilizers travel in bulk and liquid form through Lithuania. Authorities say it is much more difficult to detect illegal cargo in liquid fertilizers than in bulk.
The state-owned Belarusian potash fertilizer plant Belaruskalij claims on its website that it produces about a fifth of all potash fertilizers produced in the world and employs some 16,000 people. people. This company exports its products through the port of Klaipeda, from where cargo is transported all over the world.
Photo by Vidmantas Balkūnas / 15 min photo / Belaruskalij wagon with fertilizer load at Stasylai train station (Šalčininkai district)
Fertilizers are transported through Lithuania by the Lithuanian railways. Most of the Belarusian cargo in Klaipeda consists of fertilizers from the Belaruskalij company, which are loaded by the Bulk Cargo Terminal company managed by Igor Udovickis and Belaruskalij.
The EU formally imposed sanctions on Belarus in late June, banning the import or transit of potash fertilizers through Belarus, but the ban only came into effect for contracts concluded after June 25. Meanwhile, previously signed contracts, some of which are valid for several years, are not covered by this prohibition.
It is true that the voices calling for a more thorough inspection of the Belarusian cargo traveling through Lithuania are famous.
“The movement of cargo from Belarus must be specially controlled or even stopped. It was promised to organize large smuggling, migrant flows and even reactive materials to Lithuania. So far, promises are being kept. Therefore, the transport of fertilizers by trains and tractors from Belarus must be thoroughly inspected or even restricted, ”Dalia Grybauskaitė, the outgoing president, said this week.
Moltai water
In recent years, the amount of smuggling in Lithuania has increased both by land and by rail. According to the Criminal Customs Service, Lithuanian officials have recently found large consignments of cigarettes smuggled on trains from Belarus almost every week, mostly with fertilizer wagons.
Žviron says the increase is especially felt in the summer months.
“We see that the activation is something similar at this time, so we are intensifying our activities and conducting periodic inspections of both land and rail transport,” says the Director General of the Customs Department.
Photo by Vidmantas Balkūnas / 15 min photo / Darius Žvironas, Head of the Customs Department
In 2019, officers recorded 14 arrests for smuggling on the railroad, in 2020 – 36, and in the first half of 2021 – 37. This year, the number of cigarettes caught smuggled is higher than in all of 2020.
The value of cigarette smuggling in rail transport seized this year is about 4 million. euros.
Clever Smugglers’ Hideouts
Smugglers use open and closed wagons, containers and tanks to transport illegal smokers. In wagons, illegal cargo is placed in hiding places at the back of wagons, double walls, tanks.
VIDEO: Smuggling of Belarusian fertilizers: the number of cases is increasing and the XIX century. peaks of time
It is also a popular way to hide illegal smokers by mixing them in official freight cars or installing hiding places there. For example, cigarettes are often hidden in bulk cargoes that are difficult to control (potassium chloride fertilizers, gravel or wood burials, and are hidden in so-called “coffins”): cigarettes are transported by cutting empty cavities in timber. There are times when a vehicle should be officially empty but everything is loaded with cigarettes.
The methods of concealing illegal cargo are constantly changing, smugglers are constantly trying to improve old methods, devise new ones and use technologies. It happens that illegal smokers are fastened to the bottom of the wagon with electromagnets, in the right place, when the button is pressed, the load falls on the rails. But criminals often make mistakes too.
“The last most interesting case was maybe a couple of weeks ago, when I was driving a van with cakes, but a simple, not a refrigerator, we ourselves understand that at a temperature of more than 30, cakes, cream cakes could not adhere to What immediately provoked the suspect and there found that the cigarettes were found only a couple of cakes were placed on top of the load ”, says Darius Žvironas.
The smuggling route
Where the contraband was loaded is a difficult issue in cases. It is safer to load the contraband in factories of legal load; there smugglers have more time to hide their cargo well. The wagons leave the factories with stamps, but Lithuanian officials believe that they are easy to counterfeit, so smugglers can cut the stamps at train stations in Belarus or when the train is already moving towards Lithuania, they can put the counterfeit in hidden cargo.
Photo by Vidmantas Balkūnas / 15 min photo / The customs officer cuts a seal from the Belurskalij wagon with fertilizers at the Stasylai train station (Šalčininkai district)
In Lithuania, smugglers know in which turns the train slows down, where its speed is slowest, then they get on the train and dump the illegal cargo. In Lithuania, trains sometimes stop, their movement is not always homogeneous; this is another opportunity to eliminate smuggling.
The time smugglers need to pick up depends on the amount of illegal cargo and the concealed way: smuggling on top of the legal load can be a few minutes’ job, but it takes much longer to better pick up hidden illegal smokers , in difficult situations. hiding places or buried in charcoal or fertilizer.
Smugglers often use technology to help: they use GPS devices, which help to control the cargo, always see your location, if necessary, provide the opportunity to organize the removal of goods, not only at the planned location, but also at the random. There are many carriages on the train, so GPS devices alone are not enough to separate which carriage has illegal cargo. Smugglers mark the wagon or pass it on to their colleagues in Lithuania.
In Lithuania, smuggling is most frequently detected at posts close to the Belarusian border: at the Kena railway post, Stasylai, Šalčininkai and at the last stop in Klaipėda.
Customs officials still handle large amounts of cargo by hand
There are 50-60 wagons on each train arriving in Lithuania, each wagon can hold up to 70 tons of cargo. Our state reaches about 30 thousand a day. tons of fertilizers from Belarus. All these quantities are controlled by customs officials by hand.
Photo by Vidmantas Balkūnas / 15-minute photo / Customs officials inspect a freight car with fertilizers at Stasylai train station (Šalčininkai district)
“One of the main challenges is time. Because it takes an hour, sometimes two, to inspect a lineup. Time is like money. This is money for the carriers: Lithuanian railways, we cannot stop the traffic. We need to turn faster, there is a real lack of technological solutions in this place ”, commented the Director General of the Customs Department.
Today, bulk cargo is inspected with spikes – these long metal needles were used by customs officials as early as the 19th century. Lithuanian officials say that everything would be much simpler if it had an X-ray system, which would allow smuggling to Lithuania to be much faster and more efficient.
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