On the evening of Thursday 30 July 2026, officers from VSAT's Kapčiamiestis Border Post - part of the Varėna Border District, the same post that found the Pertakas tunnel four days earlier - were monitoring the border near Kuodžiai village, Lazdijai district, when sounds consistent with flying drones drew their attention from the Belarusian side. They deployed both anti-drone systems available at the post and sealed off the suspected crossing zone. In just over ten minutes, four contraband drones were brought down, each carrying a separate package.
Four aircraft, four packages, one operation
VSAT and 15min.lt describe the interceptions as a single rapid sequence rather than four separate incursions: the border guards' equipment forced each aircraft down in turn as it crossed. Officers recovered all four airframes and their cargo from the area and brought them to the Kapčiamiestis post for processing. VSAT put the intercept at the 42nd contraband drone brought down on the Lithuania-Belarus border since the start of 2026.
Inside the four packages: 4,000 packs of cigarettes, split between the NZ Gold and NZ Black brands, both carrying Belarusian excise stamps not valid under Lithuanian customs law. At full Lithuanian excise liability, VSAT valued the combined cargo at €21,840.
The same post, four days after the Pertakas tunnel and the confrontation VSAT initially withheld
Kapčiamiestis Border Post detected the Pertakas tunnel on 26 July, the incident where officers were later confronted and overpowered by a larger group of migrants - a detail VSAT withheld from its public announcement and, by the minister's own account, from Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas for three days. This four-drone intercept follows in the same post's area of responsibility, underscoring that VSAT's Kapčiamiestis section has faced concurrent pressure from both drone-borne cigarette smuggling and migrant crossing attempts through late July and early August 2026.
NZ Gold and NZ Black are among the most frequently recovered brands on the southern Lithuania-Belarus border in 2026, also present in the Tausiūnai drone interception and the Druskininkai four-drone night.
A full record of border and airspace incidents over Lithuanian territory is at Dronai Lietuvoje. The full incident archive is at incident archive.