A record amount of over 14 kg of smuggled gold bars worth over 1 million and 300,000 leva was seized by customs officers at the “Lesovo“ checkpoint. They were discovered during an inspection of a truck driver.
The curious shipment was cast in the form of gold bars, a total of 10, distributed over the body of a Romanian truck driver, bTV reported.
The head of the Lesovo customs checkpoint Iliya Iliev explained that they chose the vehicle because it was empty.
“Colleagues from the Customs Investigation and Intelligence, “Operational Control and Combating Drug Trafficking“ department "they select the vehicle… for inspection because it is empty, it is traveling to Turkey - according to risk indicators, which are for our information“, said Iliya Iliev.
When inspecting the vehicle, they did not find anything, but when they performed a personal examination of the driver, they found 10 gold ingots on him, which are between 10 and 18 carats, which was used and cast for further processing.
The gold was stuck to him all over his body with scotch tape or duct tape, and two more ingots were found in the soles of his shoes. The total amount is 14 kg 266 grams.
Since the beginning of the year, about 23 kg of gold have been seized at the three points that are part of Burgas Customs - Kapitan Andreevo, Lesovo and Malko Tarnovo. There is jewelry, some of which is on its way out of the country, which is for processing.
There are many different cases, but now as a trend they put gold on themselves, for the simple reason that it is not bulky and can stick to them and they do not suspect, it is not visible under clothes and so on.