Contraband smokes in Almeria

SOME 5,000 packets of contraband cigarettes worth €25,000.
That was the total amount of illicit tobacco Guardia Civil seized in less than a week during routine controls on vehicles and passengers coming off ferries from Algeria at Almeria port.
The finds resulted in three arrests.
In the most recent incident officers discovered 500 packets of different brands of cigarettes lacking the necessary tax stamp hidden creatively hidden on a vehicle which disembarked from the ferry Vronskiy after sailing from Oran.
Just days before the Guardia found 1,300 packets of illegal smokes stashed in a double bottom made to look like a fuel tank at the back of the vehicle which came off the same boat after it made the crossing from Gazahouet.
Earlier officers had found more than 3,000 packs of fags without a tax stamp concealed in the back of a van.