Prime Minister Borissov: Cigarette smuggling should be eliminated by February 2012

“The smuggling of cigarettes should be eliminated by February 2012,” said Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in Varna yesterday, during an inspection of the Varna-West port, carried out together with Vanyo Tanov, Executive Director of the Bulgarian Customs Agency. The inspection coincided with the detention of 936 master boxes of cigarettes in a major operation of the EU customs authorities. "I am very pleased with the work of the Customs, the National Border Police and the National Service for Combating Organized Crime," said Borissov. But he added that Head of the Customs Agency Vanyo Tanov and Maya Kolarova, Director of the Customs - Varna, would examine why the Chief of the Shift and his colleagues from the Customs had not submitted the signal for the seized goods on time. “Besides the administrative penalties which will be imposed, it is likely that the offenders will be charged with crimes as well,” said the Prime Minister.

According to Borissov, the information system,  connecting the Customs Agency and the National Revenue Agency,  is operating and has already contributed to  achieving better results - the revenue, collected from fuels this week, is by BGN 37 mln more than that in the previous one. The Prime Minister added that the Government in office reported for dozens or even hundreds times more cases of contraband goods seized, due to the new scanners and equipment in the customs. "Our aim is to limit the human factor, since if a smuggling of $ 3 mln is discovered, a bribe of $50, 000, $100, 000 or even $200, 000 for the customs officer is no problem at all, because such batch of smuggled cigarettes can be sold in a resort city like Varna in a week, "said Borissov. He added that Vanyo Tanov and he applied different approaches in monitoring the movement of contraband goods and worked closely with their counterparts from the European Union.

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