Unheard-of smuggling attempt at Gradina: Montenegrin bus secretly transported coronavirus tests

Photo: Customs Administration

Customs officers are often asked which goods are smuggled the most and the answer is always the same: the ones for which there is an increased demand at any given moment. An unprecedented attempt to smuggle tests for Covid-19, which has been thwarted by customs officers in cooperation with the police on October 14 at the Gradina border crossing (between Serbia and Bulgaria), speaks in favor of the smugglers following social trends with the sole intention of making a profit.

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Undeclared tests for Covid-19 were discovered when a bus with Montenegrin license plates, traveling from Istanbul in Turkey to Rozaje in Montenegro applied to get checked at the entrance to Serbia.

Drivers and passengers told customs officers that they had nothing to declare except their personal luggage, which turned out not to be true.

A detailed inspection of the interior of the bus - after the passengers disembarked with their personal luggage - first uncovered two bags with 50 ampoules containing an unknown solution, found in the backrest net of the last row of seats.

A 59-year-old bus driver, a citizen of Turkey, said they belonged to him, and explained that these ampoules were a part of the coronavirus testing set.

After that, he showed customs officers two boxes with 50 small bags, which were kept in the refrigerator of the bus, and which together with the previously found ampoules make up 50 complete SARS-Cov-2 test sets. The driver said he intended to, but forgot to declare them.

A few hours earlier, over 220 clonareks (clonazepam) tablets were found at the entrance to the country in the possession of a passenger in a van that was on its way from Bulgaria to Germany. The drug is a version of rivotril and is on the list of psychoactive substances.

As the 46-year-old Bulgarian citizen, in whose handbag the disputed drugs were found, did not have adequate medical documentation, she was handed over to the police and the prosecutor's office, along with the medication.

(Telegraf.rs)