LISBON, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Portugal's National Guard (GNR) announced on Wednesday that 13 people have been detained in the south of the country in an operation against the illegal production and sale of tobacco.
The GNR said in a statement that 13 people, including 12 men and one woman, aged between 30 and 65, of Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Russian and Portuguese nationality, were arrested in the operation on Tuesday in the Loule area of Faro, while tobaccos seized can produce about 46 million cigarettes.
The investigation of the "international criminal organization engaged in the fraudulent production and marketing of tobacco" cost one year and a half and led to the dismantling of an illegal large-scale cigarette manufacturing factory, the GNR said, adding that the operation, unprecedented in Portugal, culminated in the dismantling of the first mass-produced cigarette production infrastructure in the south-eastern European country.
"It is estimated that fraud and tax evasion, generated by the production and sale of tobacco produced at the factory, amounts to more than 9.6 million euros," said the GNR.
