Parcels that caught fire in the warehouses of logistics companies in Europe in recent months were part of a Russian plot by Russian military intelligence, said Kestutis Budrys, senior national security adviser to the President of Lithuania. In October, the National Prosecutor's Office issued a statement on this matter.
Two spontaneously combustible parcels were sent from Lithuania in July to the same UK address. One of them caught fire in Germany before being loaded onto a cargo plane, the other at the warehouse of the forwarding company DHL in Birmingham, Great Britain.
The American newspaper “The Wall Street Journal” reported on Monday that the packages were part of a Russian secret operation aimed at starting fires on cargo and passenger planes flying to USA and Canada.
On Tuesday, Kestutis Budrys, senior adviser on national security to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, commented on this issue. – We need to neutralize the source, and we know who is behind these operations, it is Russian military intelligence – he said in an interview for the Zhiniu Radiyas radio station. He suggested that in response, the North Atlantic Alliance “could strengthen intelligence capabilities in the region.”
– We cannot leave this unanswered because it will only intensify and we will move to a new level of action – Budrys said. He added that these incidents “pose a direct threat to state infrastructure” and “the consequences could be terrible.”
Lithuanian Prosecutor General Nida Grunskiene informed journalists on Tuesday that several people had been detained in connection with the shipments in Lithuania. Citing the interests of the investigation, which is international in nature, the prosecutor did not specify how many people were detained.
Asked about the alleged Russian plot, a U.S. official told CNN that “there is no active threat to flights to the U.S. at this time.” In turn, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskovspeaking at Tuesday's press conference, called the WSJ reports “incomprehensible hoaxes that have never been supported by any credible information.”
Electric pillow, cosmetics and erotic gadgets
“Gazeta Wyborcza” wrote about the case in October. “An electric massage pillow made in China, cosmetics and erotic gadgets – the contents of four parcels sent in mid-July 2024 in Vilnius did not look suspicious. Two parcels underwent detailed inspection at airports, employees scanned and opened them. They did not discover a time fuse hidden in the pillow and a flammable substance in cosmetics,” the newspaper wrote.
The daily described that on July 21, 2024, a fire broke out at the base of a transport company that works for the DPD courier concern in Jabłonów near Warsaw. He added that the cargo in the truck's trailer was on fire, and the local police began to conduct a routine investigation. It was noticed that the day before there had been a fire in a shipment container in Leipzig, which was about to be placed in the hold of a cargo plane.
As described by “GW”, before the parcel that started the fire at the airport was placed in the container, employees X-rayed it with a scanner. The head of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, said that “by a happy coincidence, the parcel caught fire on the ground and not during the flight.” A day later, there was an explosion at the airport at the DHL warehouse in Birmingham. As “GW” pointed out, the contents were supposed to be the same, i.e. a Chinese-made massager and cosmetics in tubes.
“Wyborcza” reported that there was one more parcel, which was the only one that did not catch fire. She was supposed to be intercepted by policemen from the capital police station and officers of the Internal Security Agency.
October statement of the National Prosecutor's Office
On October 25, the National Prosecutor's Office issued a statement on this matter. Investigators said that four people involved in the activities of an international sabotage and sabotage group that sent parcels have been arrested, and two more are wanted.
According to prosecutor Katarzyna Calów-Jaszewska from PK, the investigation concerns participation in Poland and other EU countries “in the activities of foreign intelligence by committing acts of sabotage consisting in damaging industrial facilities and critical infrastructure in the form of airports, planes and vehicles, and initiating fires using courier parcels.” with spontaneous combustion.
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– Moreover, the group's aim was to test the transfer channel for this type of shipments, which were ultimately to be sent to the United States of America and Canada – noted prosecutor Calów-Jaszewska.
The allegations made include, among others: to the provision of the Penal Code stating that “whoever, taking part in the activities of a foreign intelligence service or acting on its behalf, commits subversion, sabotage or commits an offense of a terrorist nature, shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a period of not less than 10 years or the penalty of life imprisonment “.
The investigation is being conducted by the Masovian Branch of the Department for Organized Crime and Corruption of the Polish Railways in Warsaw, together with the Internal Security Agency. The proceedings initiated in August are also conducted in cooperation with the Civil Aviation Office.
CNN, PAP, “Gazeta Wyborcza”
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