A case of illegal cigarette sales was uncovered in one of the shops in Karaganda. Police seized around 47,000 packs of untaxed products.
According to Polisia.kz, the amount of damage caused to the state is estimated at 50 million 274 thousand tenge.
"The police have identified two men involved in the sale of these products. All circumstances of the case and those involved in the illegal activity are being established", the statement says.
Recall that in May it was reported that due to cigarette smuggling last year, the state budget of Kazakhstan lost approximately 33 billion tenge.
In September, border guards foiled attempts to illegally import cigarettes at the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border. The tobacco products were found in a refrigerated truck, which according to accompanying documents was supposed to contain Bulgarian peppers. During inspection, more than 180,000 packs of undeclared cigarettes of the brands "Oris", "Parliament" and "Zumerret" were seized.
Shortly before that, a batch of contraband cigarettes brought in from Turkmenistan bypassing the customs control zone was discovered by employees of the Agency for Financial Monitoring (AFM) in the Mangystau Region. The customs value of the confiscated 6.5 million packs of cigarettes amounted to nearly 1.5 billion tenge.
In October, in the Aktobe Region, authorities stopped the illegal export of a large batch of cigarettes from Kazakhstan through the "Zhaysan" vehicle checkpoint. At that time, more than 71,000 packs were being taken out without accompanying documents, hidden under boxes of vegetables.
In mid-November, police found 126,000 packs of cigarettes without excise control marks (ECM) worth over 50 million tenge at a warehouse in Kostanay. A local businesswoman had bought these cigarettes at a price below market value, intending to sell them later.