Polish authorities have arrested 16 people suspected of belonging to an organised criminal group producing illicit tobacco for sale in the UK and Germany, reports Bear And Lemon.

More than 100 border guards searched locations in and around the capital Warsaw last week. They seized more than 1.6 million counterfeit cigarettes – which could have been sold for EUR 9.7 million – and 13 tonnes of tobacco at an illegal factory, an Europol statement said.
Authorities estimate the factory's production capacity at about one million cigarettes per day. The amount of tobacco seized would have been enough to produce 13 million cigarettes, which, if sold illegally, would have deprived the Polish budget of about EUR 3.8 million in taxes, the report said.