Prison sentences for cigarette smuggling using a drone

The judgment is not final. The prosecutor's office demanded penalties ranging from three to nearly four years in prison and PLN 60,000 each. PLN fine. The court imposed fines of PLN 20,000-24,000. zloty. It is not known whether she will appeal. The public prosecutor was not present at the announcement of the verdict.

Defense lawyers wanted acquittals or as mild penalties as possible. The accused are a Pole and two citizens of Belarus - all three are residents of Białystok. The local district prosecutor's office accused them of taking part in the illegal importation of 4,600 people to Poland using an unmanned aircraft. packs of Belarusian cigarettes without Polish excise stamps.

The value of the smuggling amounted to PLN 94,000. zlotys. The border guard found these cigarettes in April in foiled packages in the forests of the Białystok district on the basis of the so-called pins (location records) found on the phone of one of the accused. Investigators also accused them of violating the so-called Sanctions Act, i.e. the regulations of 2022 on special solutions for counteracting support for aggression against Ukraine and for protecting national security.

These provisions treat cigarette smuggling from Belarus, as a country participating in Russia's aggression against Ukraine, as a crime punishable by 3 to even 30 years in prison. The District Court in Białystok sentenced all three on Thursday, but with a milder legal qualification and changing the description of the act. He found that the defendants could be accused of involvement in the smuggling of PLN 4.6 thousand. parcels, but 1.6 thousand packs of illegal cigarettes.

In the case of qualifications under the Sanctions Act, the court assumed that such a number of cigarettes could be considered a less serious case, which influenced the amount of the penalty.

The court also considered the defendants' explanations as to why they were in the place linked by the Border Guard to the cigarette dump as an ineffective line of defense. They said that "they were looking for lost things or antlers there in the morning and in the dark." The key evidence were the drop coordinates that one of the accused had on his phone. In these places, the border guard found packages of cigarettes.

Justifying the sentence, the judge recalled that until April 2022, such smuggling was only a fiscal crime, but then the so-called Sanctions Act, according to which such criminal activity constitutes a crime and is subject to severe punishment. It is an expression of international solidarity towards the country that is the victim of aggression, as well as an attempt to stop the aggressor countries. This is achieved by cutting them off from sources of financing, said the judge.

The cigarettes came from a Belarusian factory subject to sanctions. Belarus is an aggressor because in February 2022 it made its territory available for aggression, the judge added.