Detectives of the territorial department of the Bureau of Economic Security (BES) in Lviv region have exposed a large-scale scheme of selling illegally manufactured tobacco products and smuggling them abroad, the agency’s website reported on Wednesday.
According to its data, the detectives of the Bureau in Lviv region conducted an immediate inspection of a truck with excisable goods, and in Zakarpattya region they searched a warehouse. During the search revealed and seized more than 330 thousand packs of tobacco products without excise tax marks, about 1.5 tons of hookah tobacco, a vehicle, as well as rough records and documentation evidence of illegal activities. The preliminary total value of excisable products seized from the illegal turnover is almost 18 million UAH.
Currently, measures are taken to establish the full range of persons involved in the scheme, the primary investigative actions.
BEB clarified that the pretrial investigation into criminal proceedings on criminal offence under Part 1 of Article 204 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal storage and transport with intent to sell excisable goods) is carried out by detectives of the territorial administration of the Lviv region, under the procedural guidance of prosecutors of the Lviv Regional Prosecutor’s Office.
As reported with reference to the tobacco market research institute “Kantar Ukraine”, the share of illegal tobacco products on the Ukrainian market in August 2022 increased by 5 percentage points (p.p.) compared to the annual average of 2021 – up to 21.9% from 16.9%, the volume of shadow market was the highest since the independence of Ukraine.
The Institute specified that 56% of the tobacco products illegally sold in 2022 as export or Duty Free products have the mark of production of Vinnikivska Tobacco Factory (Vinniki, Lviv region) and marked as not intended for sale in Ukraine. The share of unidentified producers was 24% (in 2021 – 23%), United Tobacco LLC (Zheltye Vody, Dnepropetrovsk oblast) – 19% (in 2021 – 15%).
