Contraband tobacco seizure near Corinth
Harbor police officials arrested one man and confiscated close to 80,000 packs of contraband cigarettes during a raid on a warehouse near the northern Peloponnesian town of Corinth, authorities said on Saturday. Over 77,000 packs of smuggled cigarettes were found in the warehouse at Examilia, 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) south of Corinth, which also contained machinery for packaging the cigarettes that were to have been exported as toothpicks. Officers arrested Constantinos Kairaktaris, 45, who was responsible for the warehouse, as he was trying to run away. A Merchant Marine Ministry statement said the same warehouse had been used to repackage a consignment of 48,000 packs of contraband cigarettes seized a year ago in the port of Patras in a truck that was about to board an Italy-bound ferry. Greece is a significant link in the European cigarette-smuggling business.
