Customs officers from the Drug Trafficking Control department and officers from the Border Police Directorate General stopped a lorry at the Kulata border checkpoint on Friday. It was carrying 45,000 packs of cigarettes without Bulgarian excise stamps. The cigarettes, worth €172,350, were hidden in a load of mandarins.

The two men driving the tractor unit with a refrigerated trailer, a driver and a co-driver, showed papers for a load of mandarins.

An X-ray image showed the load was unusually dense in places.

In a hand search, officers found boxes of cigarette cartons at the front of the trailer, among plastic crates of mandarins.

Two Romanian citizens are charged in the case.