Under the procedural guidance of the Lviv Regional Prosecutor’s Office, law enforcement authorities uncovered an underground workshop in the Khmelnytskyi region for the illegal production of excise goods – cigarettes (part 2 of article 204 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
According to the investigation, a group of individuals organized the illegal large-scale manufacturing of tobacco products under the guise of well-known brands.
The underground production was located in a non-residential building in the city of Khmelnytskyi. There, they installed a full cycle industrial line for cigarette production – from shredding tobacco to packaging the finished product.
It was preliminarily established that the production capacities could manufacture 30,000 packs of cigarettes per day.
Subsequently, the finished goods were sold to wholesale buyers through intermediate points where the counterfeit was directly delivered from the ‘production’ site.
Law enforcement officers discovered and seized the industrial line and special equipment for cigarette production, about 19.5 tons of tobacco, nearly 100,000 packs of various brands of cigarettes without excise tax stamps, printed materials, mobile phones, and draft records.
The approximate value of the equipment, components, and cigarettes seized during the searches amounted to over 11 million UAH.
The exposure measures were conducted jointly with investigators of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Lviv region and operative personnel of the Department of Strategic Investigations in Lviv and Khmelnytskyi regions of the National Police of Ukraine.
The pre-trial investigation continues.