Polish police responding to a highway traffic accident found thousands of cigarettes strewn across S61, a key route linking Poland and Lithuania. Investigators found more than 1 million cigarettes in a van that had just crossed the border and stopped in the emergency lane before getting hit and spilling its cargo. The cigarettes were seized for not having Polish tax stamps, and the 36-year-old Lithuanian driver was arrested.
According to preliminary estimates, the smuggling attempt could have deprived the Polish state budget of over 1.5 million złoty ( $416,000) in unpaid excise duty.
