French judicial authorities from Bordeaux said they had broken the chain of production of counterfeit cigarettes, produced in Slovenia and sold in France, and it was about tens of tons of cigarettes, said the MIA correspondent from Paris.

"Two key members of the criminal network have been arrested on a European arrest warrant, one in Croatia, the other in Slovenia," the specialized inter-regional jurisdiction said in a statement.

They will be handed over to Bordeaux courts to be held accountable in particular for "importing counterfeit cigarettes into an organized gang", an offense punishable by up to ten years in prison and a fine of up to 10 times the value of the counterfeit goods.

Investigators found that the cigarettes were delivered by truck to wholesale customers located mainly in Bordeaux, Montpellier, Nantes and Limoges, with whole pallets of cartridges bought for an average of 13 euros and resold for twice as much. Seventy-seven tonnes were shipped between October and December 2020.

Wholesalers were arrested in France and five tonnes of counterfeit cigarettes were seized in April 2021, before investigations allowed tracking of production sites in Slovenia. A series of searches and arrests took place on Tuesday in the Maribor region of Slovenia, with eleven locations searched simultaneously. The operations made it possible to locate several production sites "located in discreet hangars located in remote locations in Slovenia".

"In Slovenia, a total of more than 26 tons of raw tobacco or tobacco ready for packaging in cigarettes were seized, as well as 29 million filters for their production, several machine tools and ten tons of packaging with counterfeit Marlboro and Marlbb brands. "These figures illustrate the extent of smuggling of counterfeit cigarettes into Europe," said a statement from French judicial authorities.