Customs officers at the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing found 63,000 cigarettes (3,150 packs) without Bulgarian excise stamps in two lorries coming from Turkey. The regional press office of the Customs Agency in Svilengrad announced the checks.

One of the lorries is a tractor unit with a semi-trailer and Turkish plates. The driver's papers listed textiles as the load, travelling from Turkey to Romania through Bulgaria. A risk analysis flagged it for a full search. Officers found 32,000 cigarettes, or 1,600 packs, in factory-made cavities in the driver's cab.

The second lorry was carrying goods from Turkey to the Netherlands. In the front wall of its semi-trailer, officers found 1,550 packs, or 31,000 cigarettes, also with no excise stamps.

Officers drew up citations against both drivers.

Since the start of October, customs officers at the crossing have seized nearly 1,200,000 smuggled cigarettes. Another big haul came on 9 October: nearly 129,000 cigarettes in a lorry carrying fruit and vegetables from Turkey to Austria through Bulgaria.