Ukranian railway engineers arrested for cigarette smuggling

Hungary's customs officials arrested two engineers of a cargo train from Ukraine, suspected of having smuggled cigarettes into Hungary, seizing both the smuggled goods and the train's engine at Zahony border station, a local customs spokesman told MTI on Wednesday. The train entered the country late on Tuesday. Officers spotted that several large packages had been thrown out of it before it reached the railway station, Jozsef Kupecz said.

The packages were found to contain some 15,000 packets of Ukrainian cigarettes, worth an estimated 7 million forints (22,400 euros).

Legal proceedings have been initiated against the train's two engineers, while the authority also seized the engine only to be released to the Ukrainian railway company when the fine for smuggling -- expected to amount to several million forints - is paid.

Kupecz said it was now routine for smugglers to throw illegally imported Ukrainian cigarettes out of trains between the border and the railway station, where, according to a previously agreed plan, smugglers' Hungarian accomplices can collect them.

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