Operation ‘Burbujas’

• The cigarettes, most probably fake, were hidden in a container coming from Singapore and were unloaded in the port of Valencia
• In the operation, two people of Bulgarian and Polish nationality have been arrested, who have already been brought to justice.

23 October 2013.-

The Tax Agency has apprehended 470,000 packs of smuggled 'Manchester' cigarettes on the 15th of October in an industrial plant located in an industrial estate near Villariezo, Burgos. The cigarettes were hidden in the inside of a container that had been unloaded in the port of Valencia, where it had arrived in a ship that was coming from Singapore.

The operation, called 'Burbujas', begins when Tax Agency's Customs Surveillance civil servants detect the arrival of a suspicious container to the port of Valencia. In order to hide the cigarettes and prevent the customs control, the smugglers had declared that the imported good was bubble wrap.

The civil servants initiated a discrete follow-up of the container from Valencia up to the declared destination, an industrial plant located in an industrial estate of Villariezo. Once the suspects had taken the container inside the industrial plant, and when it was assumed that they could have already started to unload it, the civil servants entered the plant and arrested the people that were inside.

In a first register they found the boxes of Manchester cigarettes which completely filled the container. The packs were lacking the Spanish tax seals and bore health warnings in English. Still without official confirmation, it is suspected that the cigarettes are counterfeited. The two persons under arrest, Bulgarian and Polish citizens respectively, as well as the cigarettes seized, have already been brought to justice.

The investigation has been quite complex, since, before the operative phase, three other previous deliveries with the same risk profile had been detected and checked with no results. In all three shipments the goods were legally declared and no cigarettes were transported. They could be test shipments with which the smuggler organisation would intend to prove if it was being watched or monitored.

The operation, which has had the cooperation of other customs authorities, is set in the Tax Agency's Customs and Excise Department plan to fight against tobacco smuggling. The Customs Surveillance Unit and the Customs Department of Burgos analyse shippings of goods that, introduced by sea through the ports of Barcelona and Valencia, are headed to the autonomous community of Castile-León, and which could be covering up operations of introduction of smuggled or counterfeited tobacco in Spain.

Customs Supervision: Filing complaints for smuggling and related crimes
Toll-free 900351378. Email: va.adu@aeat.es

Audiovisual resources

Media interested in having images of the operation can contact the Office of Press of the Tax Agency at telephone 91 583 12 34.