Object Flying From Belarus Smashes Roof Of House In Poland
- 28.02.2025, 9:06
‘If it had hit a person, it would have killed’.
Smuggling from Belarus to Poland has acquired a new form - it is delivered across the border with the help of weather balloons and drones. One of such objects, to which a consignment of cigarettes was tied, recently broke through the roof of a house in the Polish Gmina Szudziałowo. Polskie Polskie Radio reports the details.
The Consignment Damaged the Roof of a Building in the Village of Knyszewicze
One of such cargoes, containing more than 1,500 packets of cigarettes without Polish excise stamps, damaged the roof of a building in the village of Knyszewicze in Sokólski powiat, not far from the border with Belarus. It was initially assumed to be a meteorite. The moment the cargo fell was recorded by Stanisław Nycewicz, a sky watcher from Knyszewicze, who is affiliated with the Skytinel network:
‘This is the first case when the cargo landed in a residential area and damaged a building. Such cargoes have been falling for several months already. Usually they ended up in a field or forest. In this case, there was a danger: if someone was in the yard, they might not have had time to take cover when they heard the whistle.’
According to Stanisław Nycewicz, the damage to the roof is quite serious:
‘The dent in the roof is about one and a half by one metre. The rafters are damaged. The impact was powerful - if it had hit a person, it would have killed him’.
The smuggled cargo was reported to the Polish Border Guard by local residents.
Found Contraband Cargo
Katarzyna Zdanowicz, a spokeswoman for the Podlaskie department of the Polish Border Guard, admitted that this was the most serious smuggling incident so far. She added that in recent days similar-sized consignments of illegal cigarettes had been found in the gminas of Sidra and Kuznica.
‘The Border Guard identifies the criminals. Often they are detained while the trail is still hot when they try to collect the illegal cargo. More than ten cases of illegal importation of cigarettes using weather balloons have been detected in the Podlaskie department of the Border Guard Service since the beginning of the year,’ Katarzyna Zdanowicz said.