Event 6f022a2c-626b-4b02-9281-a18b17e9a7fc

Approved event from Hybrid War Tracker

Status: Approved Confidence: Low Category: Border Country: Poland Country: Belarus

Source: https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/02/24/cigarette-smugglers-t...

🕐

Event Time

10mo ago

➕

Created

1mo ago

✏️

Updated

1mo ago

Summary

Headline: Cigarette smugglers turn to balloons amid Poland-Belarus border clampdown

Short Summary: Smugglers have adopted balloons to move cigarettes across the Poland-Belarus border, evading newly reinforced border controls.

Description

Cigarette smugglers along the Poland-Belarus border have turned to using balloons to transport contraband, circumventing increased border security and fencing efforts.

Evidence

Quotes

Cigarette smugglers along the Poland-Belarus border have increasingly turned to using unconventional means — in particular floating packages over the border with balloons.

In the last few months, border authorities dealt with around 2,000 such cases, with police noting that in the Biała Podlaska area in eastern Poland, each balloon typically carried around 3,000 pieces of cigarettes, landed on the Polish side.

Previously, most cigarette smuggling across the land border between Poland and Belarus involved large groups of couriers carrying contraband under cover of night through forests and fields; now, authorities are discovering more floating packages.

Related URLs

https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/02/24/cigarette-smugglers-turn-to-balloons-amid-poland-belarus-border-clampdown/

Source

https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/02/24/cigarette-smugglers-turn-to-balloons-amid-poland-belarus-border-clampdown/

← Back to Events