It smelled crazy – The Budapest Times

Written by Rainer Ackermann

The financial police of Zala have arrested a Romanian truck with a record amount of cut tobacco.

The patrol of the National Tax and Customs Authority (NAV) stopped the truck for a routine check on the main road 7 not far from the Letenye border crossing point. The driver presented documents stating that he was transporting 16 tonnes of packaging materials from Poland to Italy. During the search of the driver’s cab, the investigators gained indications that the documents could be forged.

The driver then refused to open the load compartment of the semi-trailer. He had good reason to do so, as the financial police immediately smelled a strong odour of tobacco when they opened the loading ramp. Behind a few pallets of paper goods, they found more than 13 tonnes of fresh tobacco, the market value of which NAV estimates at more than 1 billion forints. Because they ‘failed’ to pay the excise duty of 560 million forints (1.4 million euros), the driver and co-driver were arrested. They now face up to ten years in prison for budget fraud and violation of tax legislation. The illegal goods, the truck and 8,000 euros in cash were confiscated.