site.btaCustoms Officers at Kapitan Andreevo Find Undeclared Currency Worth BGN 163,000

Undeclared currency worth BGN 163,073 was found by the customs officers at the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint during an inspection of two buses leaving the country.

On September 14, at 10:30 pm a bus with Romanian registration arrived at the checkpoint. In the vehicle with a Turkish driver, a second driver and 12 passengers were travelling from Romania via Bulgaria to Turkiye. They all declared to the customs officials that they were not carrying excise goods, commercial goods, precious metals and articles thereof, nor cash in BGN and other currencies. The vehicle was selected for thorough customs inspection.

A customs officer noticed that one of the passengers was placing banknotes on a seat in the bus, trying to cover them with his outer garment. It was established that these were cash, a total of EUR 30,000. According to the Turkish national, the money was his. On the body of another passenger, wrapped around the waist, customs officers found euro banknotes and US dollars. The man, a Romanian national, had concealed EUR 20,000 and USD 10,000.

Half an hour earlier, an inspection of another bus with 19 passengers found a polythene bag wrapped around the waist of a Romanian national containing EUR 24,000.

The total amount of money seized was EUR 74,000 and USD 10,000, equivalent to BGN 163,073.