170,000 packages of cigarettes seized from tanker truck in Turkey’s Osmaniye

OSMANİYE

DHA Photo

Some 170,000 packages of cigarettes were seized from a tanker truck in the Mediterranean province of Osmaniye on Oct. 25, Doğan News Agency has reported.

The packages were seized in hidden compartments of the truck during a police search at the entrance to the province.

Police stopped the fuel-oil tanker following a tip-off that it was transporting illegal packages of cigarettes. Some 170,000 hidden packages of cigarettes were seized during the search.

Police said the packages of cigarettes, which had a street value of 1 million Turkish Liras, were headed from Van to Mersin.      

Police teams said they would destroy the seized cigarettes.

The driver of the trunk, 51-year-old Hasan D., was detained on seven different charges, including robbery and the smuggling of historical artifacts after the investigation.

Earlier, over 3 million packages of smuggled cigarettes were seized during an operation on a Ukrainian-flagged dry cargo vessel passing through Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait on July 14, making it one of the largest amounts of cigarette packages ever seized on water. 

The vessel, which was carrying over 100 tons of cigarettes worth more than 28.5 million Turkish Liras, was stopped by Turkish authorities on the Bosphorus following a tip-off.

Istanbul Maritime Customs Enforcement teams had begun to track the vessel, which had left the Famagusta port in Turkish Cyprus and was headed to Ukraine.