John Culatto
A TOTAL of 1,250 cartons of cigarettes have been seized by Customs officers before they were smuggled to Spain last weekend.
Small quantities of drugs were also found in three separate occasions as Customs officers kept guard on the Rock.
The first incident took place at 6am on November 27 when officers were on patrol on Devil’s Tower Road.
They spotted a Gibraltar-registered vehicle travelling towards Eastern Beach at speed.
When they got there, the men left the car with the 750 cartons inside and fled the area.
On November 28 at around 1.30pm a local man was searched at Four Corners near the frontier.
He was found to be in possession of a small quanitity of drugs and arrested for importing it into Gibraltar.
A Spanish registered car was spotted on Halifax Road on November 29 suspected to be used for tobacco smuggling.
The people in the car saw the Customs officers and made a run for it, leaving behind 500 cartons of cigarettes inside the vehicle.
All suspected vehicles with commercial quantities of cigarettes inside were taken into storage.
Customs officers are investigating all three incidents to continue improving their procedure.
