Kirkenes port in Northern Norway is one of three ports still open for Russian fishing vessels. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Expelled Russian seaman caught smuggling large quantity cigarettes

The man was expelled from Norway last year. Coming back to Kirkenes onboard a Russian fishing vessel, the police seized over 18,000 illegal cigarettes.
April 26, 2023

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“The Russian seaman was fined 50,000 kroner (€4,300) for smuggling cigarettes and for illegally entering Norway as the man was expelled in 2022,” says Police Prosecutor Anja Mikkelsen Indbjør to the Barents Observer.

The police seized the cigarettes this weekend.

Kirkenes is one of three ports in Norway still open for Russian fishing vessels as the rest of Europe has sanctioned any port calls by Russian-flagged vessels as part of the sanctions following the war in Ukraine. Seaman can go onshore without holding a Schengen visa to Norway. 

The Barents Observer has reasons to believe that the man and the illegal cigarettes came to Kirkenes with the fishing vessel “Nes”, a boat that recently sailed out to continue fishing in the Barents Sea.

The police could not elaborate on the reasons why the seaman was expelled from Norway in 2022. In Kirkenes, he delivered the cigarettes to a local woman

“The woman is under investigation for illegally selling cigarettes,” Mikkelsen Indbjør says.

Some of the confiscated cigarettes were smuggled to Norway by a Russian fishing vessel. Photo: Finnmark Police

 

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