Ice cream on paper, contraband in the truck: the court issued a verdict

 The court found a 35-year-old resident of Odesa guilty, who attempted to illegally export cigarettes and an alcohol mixture to European countries under the guise of ice cream. The value of the discovered excisable goods exceeds 7 million UAH.

Detectives of the TO of the ESBU in the Odesa region established that during the year, the man purchased cigarettes and alcohol without corresponding quality certificates. Subsequently, he planned to smuggle these products abroad using the documents of a controlled enterprise.

For this purpose, the Odesa resident rented a warehouse with a cold storage chamber, where he allegedly stored ice cream. In reality, he used the premises to prepare the contraband cargo. He packed the cigarettes and alcohol mixture into boxes, covered them from above with containers of sweets, and loaded them into a truck with a trailer.

According to the documents, the enterprise exported nearly 20 tons of ice cream. However, during the scanning of the cargo at the "Orlivka" checkpoint, completely different goods were discovered—about 34 thousand packs of cigarettes of well-known brands, including both with and without excise tax stamps, as well as 13 thousand liters of an alcohol mixture of unknown origin. The total value of the products amounted to over 7 million UAH.

During the investigation, ESBU detectives also discovered a furniture workshop where the man had set up an illegal cigarette production. During the searches, shredded tobacco, equipment for its manufacturing and packaging, cigarette filter tubes, rough records, and a laptop were seized.

In addition, detectives found wooden logs in the workshop. The suspect planned to use them to conceal excisable goods during customs control.

The court found the man guilty of attempted contraband of excisable goods and illegal operations with excisable products (Part 2 of Article 15, Part 2 of Article 201-4, and Part 1 of Article 204 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

He was sentenced to a fine in the amount of nearly 1.4 million UAH with the deprivation of the right to engage in export activity for a term of one year, confiscation of property, and destruction of illegally manufactured goods.

Operational support was carried out by employees of the Department of the SSU in the Odesa region and the Southern Regional Department of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.

Procedural guidance – prosecutors of the Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office.