Approximately 9 kilos of smuggled foreign manufactured tobacco were seized at the Abruzzo airport.
This is the summary of the activity carried out in the first 4 months of 2024 by the management of the Customs and Monopolies agency for Lazio and Abruzzo and by the Abruzzo regional command of the financial police, thanks to the joint local action of the Customs of Pescara and the Provincial Command of Pescara.
In detail, more than 5 kilograms of loose tobacco and sixteen cartons were seized, equal to 3,200 “Marlboro”, “Camel”, “Winston” and “Terea Purple” brand cigarettes, which were hidden in the passengers’ luggage.
Since it concerns the undeclared introduction of foreign manufactured tobacco into the national territory, the Adm and the financial police have imposed administrative sanctions for a total of over 42 thousand euros. The result is the result of the memorandum of understanding signed in 2023, at national level, between the Customs and Monopolies agency and the financial police, aimed at improving the coordination of activities in the territory of competence, with particular attention to law enforcement activities and crimes in the tobacco sector. The collaboration in Abruzzo between the agency and the financial police has made it possible to improve the quantity and quality of checks carried out on passengers in transit at Abruzzo airport.
The results achieved in the operation against illegal trafficking of foreign manufactured tobacco encourage the agency and the financial police to undertake new joint actions in the area in implementation of the memorandum of understanding. «The seizures of foreign manufactured tobaccos at Pescara airport represent further evidence that the profitable synergy between the agency and the financial police in combating smuggling, in its various forms, leads to the interruption of goods illicitly introduced into Italy, to protection of citizens and businesses that act legally”, says the territorial director of the Adm of Lazio and Abruzzo, Davide Miggiano.
The Abruzzo regional commander of the financial police, Brigadier General Germano Caramignoli, adds: «The increasingly close collaboration between the various components of the financial administration is fundamental if we want to effectively combat this type of illicit trafficking and prevent the consumption of cigarettes which they cannot be sold in Italy or within the European Union as they do not comply with the parameters established by European legislation, being potentially harmful to the health of consumers”.
