Convictions for Large-Scale Tobacco Smuggling
6 June 2018
2018-Max_Planck_Herr_Wahl_1355_black white_Zuschnitt.jpg Thomas Wahl

On 20 March 2018, a criminal court in Turin, Italy sentenced several individuals to prison, seized their assets, and ordered them to pay over €150 million to the Italian customs and tax authorities. It is the provisional end (the judgment is subject to appeal) of a large-scale tobacco contraband network that was dismantled by OLAF and Italian and German law enforcement authorities in 2014.

The Turin court validated the investigative results of OLAF and its partners. The proceedings in Italy retrieved only a part of the total loss to the EU and national budgets. The proceedings were/are also being conducted in Belgium, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, Lithuania, and Poland.

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