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SMUGGLING

Customs crack massive cigarette smuggling ring

Swiss customs border guards have dismantled a smuggling ring accused of illegally importing 1.6 million cigarettes intended largely for customers in Ticino.

Published: 20 March 2013 20:59 CET
Customs crack massive cigarette smuggling ring
Photo: Swiss Federal Customs Administration

The federal customs administration disclosed on Wednesday that it had conducted an investigation implicating seven people.

The probe was triggered after an Italian man who drove into Switzerland at La Drossa, a border crossing in the canton of Graubünden.

He was later stopped not far away in the mountain town of Scuol, where 750 cartons of cigarettes were found piled to the roof of his SUV.

The man, who remains in detention, was questioned.

The investigation revealed that he was “addicted” to smuggling smokes, the customs administration said.

He imported an estimated 8,100 cartons of cigarettes primarily intended for buyers in Ticino.

The smuggled contraband amounted to an evasion of taxes totalling 400,000 francs ($423,000), customs said.

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ACCIDENT

German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident

Thirteen people, including German tourists, have been killed after a cable car disconnected and fell near the summit of the Mottarone mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.

Published: 23 May 2021 14:15 CEST
Updated: 23 May 2021 16:46 CEST
German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident
The local emergency services published this photograph of the wreckage. Photo: Vigili del Fuoco

The accident was announced by Italy’s national fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, at 13.50 on Sunday, with the agency saying over Twitter that a helicopter from the nearby town of Varese was on the scene. 

Italy’s National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps confirmed that there were 13 victims and two seriously injured people.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that German tourists were among the 13 victims.

According to their report, there were 15 passengers inside the car — which can hold 35 people — at the time a cable snapped, sending it tumbling into the forest below. Two seriously injured children, aged nine and five, were airlifted to hospital in Turin. 

The cable car takes tourists and locals from Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore up to a panoramic peak on the Mottarone mountain, reaching some 1,500m above sea level. 

According to the newspaper, the car had been on its way from the lake to the mountain when the accident happened, with rescue operations complicated by the remote forest location where the car landed. 

The cable car had reopened on April 24th after the end of the second lockdown, and had undergone extensive renovations and refurbishments in 2016, which involved the cable undergoing magnetic particle inspection (MPI) to search for any defects. 

Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Twitter that he expressed his “condolences to the families of the victims, with special thoughts for the seriously injured children and their families”.

Infrastructure Minister Enrico Giovannini told Italy’s Tg1 a commission of inquiry would be established, according to Corriere della Sera: “Our thoughts go out to those involved. The Ministry has initiated procedures to set up a commission and initiate checks on the controls carried out on the infrastructure.”

“Tomorrow morning I will be in Stresa on Lake Maggiore to meet the prefect and other authorities to decide what to do,” he said.

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