Customs officers at the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing have seized undeclared goods worth €53,155 from a truck leaving Bulgaria, the Customs Agency press office in Svilengrad said.
A Turkish-registered truck reached the checkpoint around noon on 26 October. The driver, a Turkish citizen, showed papers for mixed cargo from the Netherlands and Germany that was being carried through Bulgaria to Turkey.
A risk analysis flagged the truck for a full search, including an X-ray scan, which showed unusually dense items in the cargo area. Among the declared goods, officers found undeclared items. Some of the medicine and the phones were hidden in concealed boxes.
Officers seized 3.6 million cigarette filters, 513 e-cigarettes, 490 chargers, 200 vaporiser heads and 1,990 spare plastic cartridges. They also took 4,600 heated tobacco sticks, 99 mobile phones and 60 packs of liquid medicine for injection, described as a powerful antioxidant and detoxifier.
A customs investigator has opened pre-trial proceedings, supervised by the District Prosecutor's Office in Haskovo.
A week ago, customs officers at the same crossing caught 63,000 smuggled cigarettes, or 3,150 packs, in two checks of trucks from Turkey.