In 2020, Belarusian customs officers stopped the largest attempts to illegally import hashish and psychotropic substances in the last decade.

1. In October, 668 kg of hashish was found in a sea container with pesticides, which was transported by road from Riga to the territory of the EEU, at the checkpoint «Urbany» on the Belarusian-Latvian border. The batch was designed for 3.3 million doses, and the total cost of the drug on the black market would be about 13.4 million US dollars. Vitebsk customs officers identified the crime with the help of a risk management system, the capabilities of the X-ray inspection complex and the canine service.

2. At the end of the year, Brest customs officers, in cooperation with border guards, stopped the import of a large batch of psychotropic substances from Serbia to the territory of the EEU: 182 kg of MDMA, amphetamine and methamphetamine, hidden in industrial equipment. The crime was detected at the checkpoint «Kozlovichi» on the Belarusian-Polish border, also with the use of X-ray inspection complex and a canine service. This amount of psychotropic drugs would be enough for more than 600 thousand doses, and the total cost on the black market reaches more than 3.5 million US dollars.

3. An atypical offense was revealed by the Minsk customs officers in May during the inspection of the cargo compartment of the SCANIA road train, which arrived from Serbia. According to the shipping documents, there was a batch of cardboard in the truck, but in fact two more young men born in 2004 hid among the goods. The citizens, presumably from Afghanistan, did not have any identification documents with them.

4. In December, an attempt to illegally import more than 400 kg of black sturgeon caviar from Lithuania to the territory of the Eurasian Economic Union was stopped by Grodno customs officers at the checkpoint «Kotlovka». The delicacy product was moved among the batch of food poppies declared in the documents in improper conditions without observing the temperature regime and documents, including a phytosanitary certificate. The estimated cost of the product exceeded 200 thousand euros.

5. Employees of the Operational customs at the checkpoint «Kamenny Log» prevented the illegal import into the territory of the Eurasian Economic Union of more than 7 thousand pieces of equipment and equipment for sports of well-known Austrian, French, Italian and German manufacturers. The cost of sporting goods: skis, snowboards, ski helmets, boots and other equipment-was underestimated seven times. The estimated value of the goods in fact amounted to about 830 thousand rubles.