Border guards detain six over smuggling, including three officers

Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service detained six people in operations in the Lazdijai and Varėna districts and the city of Alytus, including three serving officers, LRT reports.

The suspects were detained on Tuesday as part of pretrial investigations into the illegal possession of excise-taxed goods and abuse of office, the service said.

In Alytus, officers detained a man before arresting an off-duty junior specialist from the Kabeliai border checkpoint, part of the Varėna border squadron, in the Lazdijai district.

In a separate operation in the Varėna district, border guards seized 6,000 packs of Belarusian cigarettes. Two men suspected of involvement in the smuggling were detained, along with an on-duty senior border guard and a junior specialist from the Purvėnai border checkpoint.

The investigations were conducted by the State Border Guard Service’s Immunity Board, its border and criminal intelligence units, and the Kovas special-purpose division.

Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas said the arrests showed that the service’s internal efforts to expose possible abuse were continuing. “A uniform is not a shield from responsibility. And it will not be,” he wrote on Facebook.

According to the State Border Guard Service, six officers had already been charged with suspected corruption-related criminal offences this year before the latest arrests. There were two such cases in 2025 and five in 2024.