Five defendants have been fined €100,000 each, with €80,000 suspended, after a court in Bruges convicted them over the illegal production of cigarettes at a warehouse in Meulebeke.
Customs officers discovered 27,000 illegal cigarettes and 13 kilograms of cut tobacco in the building, all without the required tax stamps during an investigation that began on 30 April 2024 after a tip-off from the European Anti-Fraud Office. Following several surveillance operations, customs officers raided a house and a warehouse in Meulebeke in June.
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The warehouse had been set up as a cigarette factory, complete with a production line and a packaging line. According to the authorities, the operation evaded €13,500 in excise duties. Prosecutors had sought fines of up to €135,000 and prison sentences of up to one year for all five defendants.
Untaxed cigarettes were also found at the home of two of the defendants, a Romanian couple P., 41, and M.S., 47. When officers carried out the raid, M.T., a 51-year-old Polish man and another defendant, was the only person present in the warehouse. He said he had only been there to install the air conditioning.
C.H., 58, a Ukrainian who rented the warehouse, also denied any involvement during the investigation, and a 53-year-old Syrian man, identified as E.J., was also prosecuted over his role in the case after his vehicle was seen at the warehouse several times.
Customs said it was not credible that the tenants of the house had noticed nothing unusual, though investigators pointed to taped-up windows and a shipping container that had stood by the warehouse for a long period.
The defence argued unsuccessfully that the Romanian defendants had sublet the warehouse and were often away from home during the day. Their lawyer, Elisabeth Vanpeteghem, said they could hardly be expected to “play gendarme.”
The defence also argued that the shipping container was unrelated to the offences, saying there had still been another tenant at the time.
