The Customs Service, the Border Service, the Interior Ministry, the Ukrainian Security Service and the State Fiscal Service have placed roadblocks on all the four mountain passes on the roads to the Zakarpattia region for stepping up measures against transborder contraband, Zakarpattia region state administration head Hennadiy Moskal has said.

"The posts are tasked to prevent importation of wholesale batches of cigarettes (including those without excise stamps) and counterfeit alcoholic beverages to Zakarpattia and exportation of round timber from Zakarpattia," the governor's press service quoted Moskal as saying on Wednesday morning.

In addition, illegal wholesale storages, from where cigarettes have been bought for contraband purposes, are being searched, the head of the region state administration said.

"Results of the searches are being summarized and will be reported later, but it is already possible to say that the Lviv Tobacco Factory was the main supplier of cigarettes that were illegally moved across the border," Moskal said.

Some seized cigarettes were made in Belarus, "which points to the existence of 'windows' for smugglers in the Chernihiv region bordering Belarus," the head of the Zakarpattia region state administration said.