More than 150 tonnes of counterfeit cigarettes were seized from the largest illegal factory ever discovered in Italy, customs police said in a statement on Saturday.
An underground bunker housed the 1,600-square-metre (17,000 square feet) factory near the town of Cassino, southeast of Rome, which produced more than seven million cigarettes a day — around 2.7 billion a year — the police estimated.
The illegal factory was accessed via “a sophisticated hydraulic mechanism that perfectly concealed the bunker where the machines were installed and tonnes of counterfeit cigarettes stored,” the statement said.
Officers discovered electric switches concealed in a cardboard box when searching an “almost completely empty” logistics warehouse that “showed no sign of suspicious activity”.
The device controlled hydraulic levers in the warehouse, which lifted an aluminium cabin that concealed the entrance to the bunker.
Once inside, the agents discovered a “genuine industrial factory” that had been built “to the most advanced technological standard”, equipped with three tobacco processing and counterfeit cigarette packaging lines.
The clandestine operation, capable of producing around 5,000 cigarettes per minute, was also equipped with a ventilation system that prevented the escape of emissions from the production process, the finance ministry added.
Makeshift accommodations included 18 beds, bathrooms, showers, and a dining room, as well as a workshop for on-site machine repairs, according to the statement.
The ministry estimated annual revenue from the factory exceeded 900 million euros ($1.05 billion).
“To date, the investigation has uncovered a total of around 600 million euros in evaded taxes,” it added. It said that so far, several suspects have been identified and one arrested.
AFP
