Large amount of cash seized from passengers at Riga Airport

A large amount of suspicious cash, worth nearly a million euros, was seized from a group of passengers who flew into Riga from Ukraine in May, representatives of the Latvian tax authority said on Thursday.

The suspicious cash was seized from four passengers of a private aircraft that had arrived in Riga from Ukraine's Black Sea city Odessa. Customs officers at Riga Airport checked the passengers of the private plane after receiving a tip-off about a possible attempt to smuggle a large amount of proceeds from crime into Latvia.

During the customs control, officers found 400,000 euros and 500,000 U.S. dollars in the hand luggage of the four Ukrainian nationals.

Representatives of the Latvian State Revenue Service said that there were reasons to believe that at least one of the Ukrainians was linked with organized crime in his country.

Latvian law enforcement authorities have started four criminal probes for an attempt to avoid declaration of cash and large-scale money laundering.