Ice packs - Cigarette smugglers find frozen route to Lithuania

1,500 packs of cigarettes found being smuggled under a block of ice flowing on river Neris from Belarus are seen near village of Moliai, Lithuania January 19, 2018 in this photo provided by State Border Guard Service. State Border Guard Service/Handout via REUTERS

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Tobacco smugglers are using river iceflows and GPS technology to transport their goods into Lithuania, where an estimated one in every six cigarettes smoked in 2016 was illegally imported.

The Baltic country's border guard said on Friday it had found thousands of packets of cigarettes attached beneath blocks of ice on the river Neris, which runs into Lithuania from Belarus, since the ice began flowing two weeks ago.