Cigarettes worth 7,000 found in parked car
Police in the Austrian-Italian border region are investigating after finding cigarettes worth 7,000 Euros in an abandoned car.Officials in the southern province of Carinthia said today (Tues) that police officers discovered 248 cartons of cigarettes in a vehicle parked at a motorway rest stop car park near Völkermarkt.The tobacco products were confiscated after a check with Italian police revealed that the cars Italian licence plates had recently been stolen. Police assume that a smuggling syndicate may have planned to sell the cigarettes in Austria and other countries.Only last week, custom officers in Nickelsdorf on the Austrian-Hungarian border found 254,600 cigarettes among luggage in a coach bound for Germany. Police arrested the vehicles driver and another man.Around 17 per cent of all cigarettes consumed in Austria are untaxed and therefore illegal, according to a study carried out by the Association of Austrian Newsagents and Tobacconists.