A Polish truck was involved in smuggling drugs worth PLN 8.5 million to Norway.

A court in Fredrikstad sentenced four men to prison on Tuesday for smuggling 230 kilograms of hashish. The drugs were supposed to have crossed the border hidden in a Polish-registered truck in the fall of 2024. According to police, this was the largest smuggling attempt into Norway last year.

The men attempted to import drugs in a truck with a refrigerated trailer belonging to a transport company registered in Poland. Customs officers allegedly tracked the truck, traveling from Spain, from the Svinesund crossing on the border with Sweden. Police allowed the smugglers to enter the country. Two days after crossing the border, the truck drivers and the organizers of the smuggling operation were arrested as they were reloading the hashish into other vehicles.

The seized goods were said to represent 900,000 doses with a market value of at least CZK 23 million (nearly PLN 8.5 million). Customs determined that both the Polish truck and the trailer had numerous compartments specifically designed for transporting drugs across the border.

The court sentenced the 37-year-old owner of the transport company that owned the truck to seven years and seven months in prison. The truck driver will spend six years and eight months behind bars, and his two assistants will spend three years and two months and two years and nine months in prison.

Norwegian Customs Director Oeystein Boermer told PAP that such large seizures are rare.

"They require significant resources and good organization. The attempt, for which the four were convicted on Tuesday, was a broad and carefully planned operation," the head of Norwegian customs told PAP.

Mieszko Czarnecki from Oslo (PAP)

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