Fisherman finds balloon carrying 30,000 contraband cigarettes on Estonia's Lake Peipus
A smuggler's balloon carrying thousands of contraband cigarettes was found on Estonia's frozen Lake Peipus on Tuesday morning, the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) said.
The balloon was noticed by a local fisherman around three kilometers from the temporary border control line, who informed the PPA at 11:42 a.m. on Tuesday.
Border guards from Varnja traveled to the scene by sled. When they arrived, they discovered a white balloon on the ice of Lake Peipus with three cardboard boxes attached to it.
The cigarettes were taken along with the balloon to the nearest PPA station and handed over to the Estonian Tax and Customs Board. The PPA said they were found to have Belarusian tax stamps.
The Tax and Customs Board said there were 30,000 cigarettes in the boxes attached to the balloon.
Meelis Saarepuu, head of the PPA's southern bureau, said the cigarettes that reached Estonia are most likely contraband and were sent from Belarus to Europe.
"As the movement of balloons like this has been more frequent in Latvia and Lithuania up to now, we have exchanged information with them before and are now also communicating with our colleagues there in light of today's incident," Saarepuu said.
Saarepuu's Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts said the movement of the balloons is largely unpredictable.
"It depends largely on the wind and other weather conditions, and it is often impossible to predict where they will land. The flight path of the balloon discovered today on Lake Peipus is still being investigated," he added.
Rain Kuus, head of the Tax and Customs Board's investigation department, said this is not the first case of contraband goods being transported by balloon in Estonia.
"However, in previous cases, they landed here accidentally due to the weather conditions, and Estonia was not their intended destination. We are currently analyzing all the circumstances to determine whether or not on this occasion the contraband was deliberately sent to Estonia," said Kuus.
The Tax and Customs Board has initiated misdemeanor proceedings to clarify the details of the case.
Smugglers' balloons carrying cigarettes have been found in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in recent months. In Lithuania, they disrupted air traffic at Vilnius Airport, which is only 30 kilometers from the border.
Lithuanian officials said Belarusian border guards were turning a blind eye to smugglers' activities. Prime Minister Kristen Michal (Reform) called it a hybrid attack.
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Editor: Johanna Alvin, Michael Cole, Helen Wright
