Coffin used to smuggle spirits and cigarettes

When they did though, their suspicions were justified: the casket did not contain a dead body, but was instead crammed with 20,000 cigarettes and nearly 500 litres of spirits. 

 

The Latvian driving the van had presented documents to customs officials which appeared to confirm that he was taking a Norwegian man home to be buried. He has been prosecuted for smuggling. 

 

"It demonstrates just how imaginative smugglers can be," Paul Horne from the Østfold Police told VG about the bust, made at Svinesund bridge, which crosses over from Sweden, just over 100 kilometres south of Oslo.