Assistant Manager of Gomel Customs Oleg Shved told that over the years of work employees identified about 450 cases of illegal transportation of narcotic substances, psychotropic drugs, weapons and ammunition.

In the transit point "New Guta" in the mid-2000s a passenger was carrying three kilograms of cocaine. One of the most high-profile arrests occurred in the Loev District. In a "Zhiguli" car they were transporting 14 kilograms of poppy seed. And in "Novy Rudne" a heavy truck driver transported seven kilograms of marijuana in personal belongings, passing it off as animal feed.

– In the 2010s a courier from former Yugoslavia was arrested who was transporting AK-47 machines, Uzi submachine guns, rifles with optical sights, grenades and cartridges on a premium car with a double bottom, recalled Oleg Shved. – This was the largest shipment in the history of Gomel Customs.

Besides criminal cases unusual administrative ones also occurred. For example, in 2020 ten trucks arrived at the customs clearance point in Gomel with cigarettes from the UAE. According to documents they were heading to Bulgaria and then to Uzbekistan, but the route raised questions. The check showed that there is no Bulgarian export company, and the Uzbek side did not know about the cargo. The court confiscated the cigarettes. Another case – a Minsk firm transported animal feed from epidemiologically unfavorable regions of Russia without veterinary and phytosanitary certificates. Under the guise of feed were imported food industry waste worth about eight million rubles.

Cases involving movement of flora and fauna objects cause resonance. Periodically people transporting mammoth tusks are detained in trains and buses trying to pass