Customs agents destroyed 20 million counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes in a crackdown on smuggling and organized crime in Kosovo, an official said Tuesday.

Countries across the Balkans lose millions of dollars in tax revenue annually because of tobacco smuggling, according to official estimates. Fighting the phenomenon has become a top priority. The cigarettes were smuggled into Kosovo from Serbia and seized last year. A United Nations investigation, conducted with Marlboro maker Philip Morris, found them to be counterfeit, European Union spokeswoman Monique de Groot said. The cigarettes were destroyed Monday in the province's main coal-fired power plant, de Groot said. The find was one of the largest in Kosovo since NATO and the United Nations took control of the province in 1999 after halting a brutal crackdown by Serb forces on separatist ethnic Albanians. Black markets have flourished across the Balkans since the region's descent into chaos in the 1990s breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

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