site.btaUPDATED Over 100,000,000 Cigarettes Found in Illegal Factory near Haskovo

A factory for illegal cigarette production in Bulgaria was discovered during an operation by the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office, the prosecution service said on Thursday.

Over 100,000,000 pieces of cigarettes of various trade names were found at the site. A large number of machines used to produce illegal cigarettes in underground caches were also discovered.

The prosecution service also said that the factory is located in the land of the village of Momkovo, near Haskovo, Southern Bulgaria.

There have been arrests during the operation carried out by the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GDCOC) and the prosecution office, which uncovered a factory for the illegal production of cigarettes, Interior Minister Daniel Mitov announced at a briefing with journalists in the village of Momkovo. According to him, this is the largest factory for the production of illegal cigarettes ever discovered in Bulgaria. 

He pointed out that the persons connected with the factory are yet to be identified.

He added that the Ministry of Interior had been working on uncovering this factory for between two and three years. The minister said that rooms where the workers lived had been found in the factory, as well as an elevator platform. There are also power generators, Mitov said. They realized that we could catch them through their electricity consumption and built an autonomous electricity production system so that the machines could operate, the minister noted. 

The spokesperson for the chief prosecutor, Hristo Krastev, announced that the market value of the cigarettes found was over BGN 30 million.

Four meters underground, a factory for the illegal production of cigarettes operated for two to three years near the village of Momkovo, Chief Commissioner Boyan Raev, Head of the GDCOC, said. Work on the group involved in the distribution of goods without excise stamps began at the start of the year, and a number of individuals involved have already been identified, Raev said. 

The operation in the village of Momkovo was a result of an inspection of a foreign-registered truck in General Toshevo, Dobrich, Raev added. Nine pallets with 324 master boxes of cigarettes of various brands were found in the truck. This was followed by an inspection of the dairy farm in the village of Momkovo.

Separate sanitary, sleeping, and kitchen facilities were found where the workers had been staying. There were beds for about ten people. It is assumed that the workers entered the underground factory for shifts lasting about ten days, Raev commented.

When the authorities entered the premises, there were no workers on site, he said, adding that there were traces of the staff's presence everywhere.

In addition to the two detainees, the factory owner and his relative, there are four other individuals involved, including a foreign citizen, Raev said. According to initial data, most of the cigarettes produced were intended for foreign markets, but some were for sale in Bulgaria.