• The agents discovered the tobacco in the checked luggage of two passengers, who came from the same flight and were carrying 1,900 packs each.

• They have been reported for a smuggling violation

July 30, 2025.- On July 13, officials from the Tax Agency's Customs Surveillance Service, along with Civil Guard officers from the Tax and Border Section at Bilbao Airport, seized 3,800 packs of contraband cigarettes from two passengers arriving on a flight from Armenia with a stopover in Athens. Each one carried 1,900 packs.

Officials from the Tax Agency's Customs Surveillance Service and Civil Guards, both acting as the State's Fiscal Guard under the functional authority of the Regional Customs Unit of the Tax Agency in the Basque Country, carry out daily inspections of passengers and baggage according to risk prevention criteria in the arrivals hall of Bilbao Airport, among other activities.

After conducting the appropriate analyses on the selected suitcases from the Athens-Bilbao flight, they discovered that the checked luggage of two passengers each contained 1,900 undeclared packs of cigarettes, for a total of 3,800 packs. The total value of the tobacco seized in the two operations is around €19,000.

The offenders, each carrying two large suitcases filled with cigarette packs, claimed to have no relationship with each other.

The officers issued a smuggling violation report to each of the passengers for carrying undeclared tobacco, which was forwarded to the Regional Customs and Excise Headquarters of the Tax Agency in the Basque Country.

Quality of smuggled tobacco

It is usually significantly lower than that of legal and regulated tobacco, since the raw material is mixed with waste and does not undergo quality controls. It may contain unauthorized pesticides or chemicals, and even a higher concentration of carcinogens.