A court has kept a Polish man, identified only by the initials M. K., in custody, the Appellate Prosecutor's Office in Sofia said. He is charged with possessing cigarettes without Bulgarian excise stamps worth €1,789,852.80. He was detained at the Kulata border checkpoint after entering Bulgaria from Greece.

The man was driving a lorry registered in Poland. The district prosecutor's office in Blagoevgrad, through its Petrich branch, asked the court to hold him in custody. He is charged under Article 234, paragraph 3, point 3, read with paragraph 1, of the Criminal Code.

Customs officers selected the truck for a check on 6 October after a risk analysis. An X-ray scan raised suspicion, and officers searched the truck by hand at the Kulata customs office. Its papers said it was carrying enamelled stoves to EU countries.

The cartons were marked as stoves, but officers found metal boxes of cigarettes of three brands inside. Some of the cigarettes have no Bulgarian excise stamps, and others are marked "Duty Free". In all, there are 8,999,160 cigarettes in 449,958 packs.

The prosecutor's office and the Customs Agency gave details of the case at a joint briefing. At an earlier briefing, they announced Operation Prometheus, aimed at smuggling of excise goods through Bulgaria's border crossings. Nearly 25 million cigarettes in 24 hours were found in four lorries, two at the Lesovo checkpoint and two at Kulata. Stefan Bakalov, deputy head of the Customs Agency, put the total estimated value of the cigarettes at about €5m.