site.btaA Record 423 Kg of Heroin Seized at Bulgarian-Romanian Border

A Record 423 Kg of Heroin Seized at Bulgarian-Romanian Border

Sofia, May 21 (BTA) - A very large consignment of 423 kg of heroin was seized at the Vidin border checkpoint on the Danube River between Bulgaria and Romania, Customs Agency Director Georgi Kostov told a news briefing on Sunday. This is the largest amount of an illicit drug ever impounded from a vehicle in Bulgaria, Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov noted.

On the early morning of Saturday a customs team at Vidin ordered a Sofia-registered truck transporting terracotta tiles from Bulgaria to the Netherlands to pull over for a check. An analysis of the accompanying documents showed that the sender of the tiles was an unknown company and the receiver was supposed to be a food company.

Then the heroin was found on the truck. The illegal substance is of very high purity, close to 70 per cent, and its price is estimated at 63.4 million leva (32.4 million euro).

Police arrested the 43-year-old sender and identified the warehouse in which the consignment had been reloaded in order to be forwarded to the final destination in the Netherlands, Interior Ministry Chief Secretary Mladen Marinov said. The drug entered Bulgaria from Turkey on May 17, carried on an Iranian-registered tractor with a trailer driven by an Iranian man. The enforcers traced the whole journey of the drug through Bulgaria until it was reloaded onto the Bulgarian truck in an attempt to disguise the Iranian origin of the load. Iran is a high-risk country in terms of the goods transported from there to Western Europe, Marinov explained.

The arrested sender runs a commercial corporation headquartered in Sofia and owned by his wife. The wife has not been detained. The investigation continues.

In an earlier case reported by Prosecutor General Tsatsarov, 214 kg of heroin was discovered at the Kapitan Andreevo crossing on the Bulgarian-Turkish border on April 24. The drug was found in containers which held spices for making fried chicken, transported by an Iranian driver.