Security Ministry Launches Fight Against Smuggling

(Tbilisi, July 21, 2003, Civil Georgia) – Georgian State Security Ministry announced today that the turnover of the smuggled oil products in Georgia reached “alarming rates.”

“We start to implement a special plan, which implies detention and accounting of smuggled oil-products. This measure will be implemented on the entire territory of Georgia,” Spokesman for the Georgian Security Ministry Nika Laliashvili said at the new briefing on July 21.
 
According to the Parliamentary Committee on Tax and Revenues the Georgian authorities failed to collect at least 40 million Lari in the first half of the 2003 because of the smuggling of petrol.