CCC detained and not released: lawyers’ recommendations for action

In the evening, law enforcement officers stopped a passenger car with diplomatic license plates on the Ukrainian-Moldovan border, in which thousands of packs of cigarettes without excise stamps were found.

This incident occurred at the Mamalyga checkpoint. Ukrainian border guards, together with customs officers, inspected a vehicle heading towards Moldova. The car was driven by a Polish citizen born in 1964. The man hoped that the diplomatic license plates would help him avoid inspection.

However, during a thorough inspection of the car’s interior and trunk, boxes of cigarettes without excise stamps were discovered. According to preliminary estimates, about 6,700 packs were seized, with a market value exceeding 970,000 hryvnias.

Law enforcement officers note that the offender attempted to exploit the car’s diplomatic status, but his smuggling attempt was successfully thwarted.

In addition, on the Ukrainian-Polish border, customs officers at the Shehyny-Medica checkpoint detained an attempt to illegally export an ancient 17th-century icon painted by Swiss artist Andreas Asper.

During an inspection of a Volkswagen Crafter, customs officers discovered this valuable item among the personal belongings of a Ukrainian returning from Poland. The author’s signature and the inscription on the back confirmed its authenticity.

Experts from the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv estimated the icon at 25,000 US dollars, emphasizing its significant historical and cultural value, which, in Ukrainian hryvnias, is over 1 million.