Belarusian border guards to boost luggage controls

Belarusian border guards will strengthen luggage control on the exit border. The reason for the change was an incident with a French citizen smuggling his Russian wife in a suitcase through our border. He was travelling by train. The contraband was only discovered by the Polish border guards in Terespol. As it turned out, the woman did not have a Schengen visa, so her husband decided to smuggle her. For attempting to illegally cross the border, the couple faces up to three years in prison.

Commenting on the incident, the head of the press service of the State Border Committee, Alyaksandr Tsishchanka noted that the border guards of any country are more vigilant towards the citizens entering and not leaving the country. Therefore, Belarusian border guards did not notice a suitcase with a person inside.

Tsishchanka: "But it is a reason for us to be more vigilant at the checkout. It's like hiding places in the car: any new cache is put into our database and given more attention later. So now we will check suitcases more closely, said Alyaksandr Tsishchanka. We will look further into this case and later decide on the consequences, I do not have the details yet."

Chairman of the press service said that he could not recall such methods of crossing the border. 

"It seems in the past year or the year before there were cases when the Vietnamese were trying to cross the border at the wheels under the truck and tried to pass in the trunk, but I do not remember anyone riding in a suitcase. It seems that cases like that took place in Hungary."