- Authorities discover 250 kilograms of rotten cheese on a bus traveling along the A17.
Customs officers unearthed around 250 kg of rotten cheese in a Bulgarian tour bus on the A17 Prague-Dresden motorway during recent checks. They also found around 120 kg of Turkish honey, as per the Dresden main customs office's announcement. In another Bulgarian tour bus, they discovered 40 packs of smuggled cigarettes hidden behind the last row of seats.
During the three-day checks last week, several breaches of import regulations were detected. The main customs office, reporting the results as "extremely fruitful", initiated nine criminal investigations and handed over twelve cases to the relevant authorities. In total, officers inspected 250 vehicles and over 450 people at the "Am Heidenholz" parking lot, where traffic was rerouted.
Some other findings included securing two motorcycles in the cargo hold of a Romanian small transporter and discovering a car with a British registration on a trailer. They also found 20,000 euros of unknown origins in a man's vehicle. A loaded gas pistol was found in a 35-year-old taxi driver's vehicle, who was traveling with a passenger. Lastly, a luxury car registered in Armenia was temporarily taken off the road due to tax issues, but the driver managed to get it back the next day.
Customs officers imposed hefty customs duties on the smuggled cigarettes found in the Bulgarian tour bus, as a result of the breach of import regulations. In one of the criminal investigations initiated, the focus was on determining the amounts of undeclared customs duties on the Turkish honey and rotten cheese.
