People who organized cigarette smuggling from Russia to Western Europe are punished in Lithuania

During the pre-trial investigation, it was established that eight members of the organized group, with specific tasks, set up international transport companies as shelters for cigarette smuggling, purchased trucks and installed shelters for cigarette smuggling.

Taking advantage of friendly relationships with the managers of other international transport companies, they installed shelters in their trucks and sought out people who would agree to transport large loads of smuggled cigarettes from Russia or Belarus to Western European countries for an additional fee. 2010 – 2011 In Belarus and Latvia, 6 trucks smuggling cigarettes were smuggled into hideouts. The value of the illegal cargo seized ranged from nearly 17,000. up to 543 thousand. euros.

Vilnius Regional Court in 2019 May 31 convicted the members of the organized group alleging that the shipments of smuggled cigarettes were stopped at the border crossings between Latvia and Belarus and not on the territory of the Republic of Lithuania.

Tomas Uldukis, prosecutor in the Organized Crime and Corruption Investigation Division of the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office, who led the pre-trial investigation, appealed against this court ruling.

Lithuanian Court of Appeal underground. In a January 20 conviction, eight members of an organized group were found guilty of smuggling and illegal disposal of excise goods. The court imposed various amounts on those convicted, from 5,000. up to 11 thousand. fines.

When examining the criminal case on appeal, the Lithuanian Court of Appeal took into account the arguments made in the prosecutor’s complaint that criminal acts committed by members of the organized group were considered criminal both in the Criminal Code of the place of initiation ( Republic of Latvia) as in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania. The data provided by the Latvian law enforcement authorities showed that the Latvian authorities did not take any decisions or impose penalties for crimes committed by citizens of the Republic of Lithuania.

The Court of Appeal determined that the mutual penalty clause established in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania in relation to smuggling and illegal disposal of excise goods could be applied in the present case, as well as the circumstances by which which people who wanted to profit from cigarette smuggling could not be prosecuted.

The court also noted that the fact that some members of an organized group had been administratively punished in Belarus for smuggling cigarettes with stamps from the Russian Federation across the Belarusian-Lithuanian border did not in itself preclude prosecuting other accomplices for smuggling in an organized group.

The sentence of the Lithuanian Court of Appeal was appealed on cassation by 4 convicted persons.

The panel of judges of the Lithuanian Supreme Court concluded that in this case the Lithuanian Court of Appeal had correctly interpreted and applied the provisions of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania on mutual delinquency and had convicted members of an organized smuggling group and illegal disposal of products subject to excise duties. The court dismissed the appeals of the convicted persons through a final and unappealable order.