Several Lithuanian citizens were detained in Latvia over the past 24 hours after arriving to collect cigarette smuggling shipments delivered by meteorological balloons from Belarus, Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service chief, General Rustamas Liubajevas, announced on Tuesday.
“Quite a lot of balloons heading toward Latvia were detected during the past 24 hours,” the official told journalists.
“Based on our experience, we activated our cooperation mechanisms. According to our data, Latvian Border Guard officers and police also detained many smuggling balloons as well as the individuals who came to retrieve them — who, incidentally, are also Lithuanian citizens,” he added, without specifying the number of Lithuanians detained.
According to Liubajevas, about 30 objects heading toward Latvia were registered on Tuesday. Latvian authorities reported detecting eight balloons on Monday.
“Information from our Latvian colleagues indicates that the balloons were launched close to the Latvian border.
This points to a deliberate targeting of Latvia,” he said.
The head of the Border Guard Service stated that an increasing number of balloons are also being sent toward Poland. “Given our extensive experience, we are informing our Polish colleagues,” Liubajevas said, suggesting that Lithuania might now be “the regional leader in combating balloon-based smuggling.”
Liubajevas also reported several cases in which smuggling balloons were launched from Russia’s Kaliningrad (Königsberg) exclave.
He said that individuals had arrived to collect shipments launched from the Kaliningrad exclave, and that these were the same people who had already been involved in the east of Lithuania.
The first attempt to launch balloons from the Russian exclave was recorded at the end of summer,
he revealed.
“There were few such cases, but all were identified through operational investigations. (…) Those who arrived to collect the goods were detained,” the Border Guard chief said.
After the flow of cigarette-smuggling balloons from Belarus intensified in autumn — repeatedly disrupting airport operations — the Lithuanian government in October temporarily closed the last two border crossing points with Belarus, Medininkai and Šalčininkai, until 30 November.
However, citing technical talks with Minsk and a decrease in the number of smuggling weather-balloon launches, the Lithuanian government last week decided to reopen both previously closed border checkpoints.
Since the border reopening on Thursday, operations at Vilnius Airport have already been halted several times due to risks posed by the weather balloons.
In response to Lithuania’s decision to close its border,
the Minsk regime banned trucks with Lithuanian licence plates from travelling through Belarusian territory.
After the border reopened, Lithuanian trucks have not returned to the country.
“It can be said that the trucks that left after the reopening of the border crossing points have returned to Lithuania. Those currently in parking lots are not moving anywhere for now,” Liubajevas said.
“We clearly see manifestations of hybrid warfare,” he added.
He reported that this year 26 pre-trial investigations have been launched into balloon-based smuggling, with 66 suspects, 18 people detained, and 22 found guilty.
To combat smuggling via balloons, a joint investigation group was established by order of the Lithuanian Minister of the Interior, including officers from the Border Guard, Police, Customs and the Financial Crime Investigation Service.
Police Commissioner General Arūnas Paulauskas said
the investigative group is collecting information to form a full picture of the situation.
The Border Guard chief announced that Lithuania’s Interior Minister, Vladislavas Kondratovičs, will soon present a plan “with various measures not only aimed at increasing penalties, but also introducing other restrictions that will enable the fight against the organisers of criminal activities through legal means.”
“First and foremost, penalties must be increased and legal conditions created to ensure that those involved in smuggling cannot evade responsibility. This applies not only to those who coordinate smuggling operations but also to the small-time operatives themselves. In most cases they manage to evade responsibility,” Liubajevas stressed.
Read also: Weekend in European airspace – drones, smugglers’ balloons and airports closed again