Two men accused of possessing more than 35,000 contraband cigarettes have been acquitted after a court ruled that prosecutors failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.The case dates back to 21st February 2015, when the Economic Crimes Unit received information from internal sources about alleged cigarette smuggling taking place inside a garage in Fgura as reported by Times of Malta.Police officers, accompanied by Customs officials, searched the garage after contacting one of the accused, Sandro Agius, who was renting the property.Inside, authorities found four boxes containing thousands of cigarettes suspected of having been imported without customs duty being paid.Agius denied any knowledge of the cigarettes, telling investigators he shared the garage with the second accused, Paul Farrugia.Farrugia also denied any involvement, saying he occasionally handed the garage key to his workers.However, in her judgment, Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech found significant gaps in the prosecution’s case.Although the garage had reportedly been placed under police surveillance before the search, no officers involved in that surveillance testified in court, and no reports explaining what had been observed were ever presented.The court also noted that investigators failed to question other people renting garages nearby, did not investigate whether security cameras in the area could have provided evidence and did not produce a single photograph showing the garage or the cigarettes as they were found during the raid.Instead, the only photographs presented in court had been taken eight years later, in 2023, after the cigarettes had already been seized by Customs.The court stressed that proving the cigarettes were found inside the garage was not enough on its own.Prosecutors also had to prove that the accused knew customs duties on the cigarettes had not been paid, an essential element of the offence.After examining all the evidence, the court concluded that the prosecution had fallen “far off” the legal threshold required to secure a conviction.Both men were acquitted of all charges, with the court ruling that the case had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt.The accused were represented by lawyers Arthur Azzopardi and Roberto Montalto.•