Customs officers seized 39.4m illegal cigarettes in October 2026, more than in any other month in the past 10 years, the Customs Agency said.

Six cases, each involving millions of cigarettes, drove the record. Most were near the Kulata border checkpoint.

October's seizures make up 41% of all cigarettes found between January and October 2026. Over the 10 months, officers seized 45.3m more than in the whole of 2025, a rise of 89.3%. The biggest increase was on the border with Turkey.

Since January, 26.6m cigarettes, or 27.6% of the total, have been seized near border crossings. Seizures on internal borders have risen more than 10 times. The agency says this is down to effective checks at the Kulata checkpoint and in the Vidin area.

Customs officers are also finding more cigarettes with Bulgarian excise stamps that were meant for Western and Central Europe. They seized 3.2m of these from January to October, against 1.6m in all of 2025.

Since January, officers have also seized materials for making cigarettes: 7.8m blanks for packs of well-known brands, more than 650,000 filters, cigarette paper and machine parts. The shipments were heading to Western Europe and, the agency says, were probably meant for illegal production.