Nguyen Hai Son, 30, has been placed under criminal investigation for "manufacturing, stockpiling, transporting and/or trading in banned goods."

Whenever he traveled to Europe as part of his job, he had ordered cigars from dealers in Germany, France and Spain, and then smuggled them into Vietnam. The cigars of famous brands were packed and hidden inside an apartment in Hanoi's Long Bien District, police said Monday.

Son's arrest happened after police last week caught Vu Van Duy, 25, a GrabBike driver, while transporting foreign-made cigars without invoices or documents.

At the police station, Duy said he was hired by Son to deliver the packages of cigars to customers. The city's Economic Police Department then detained Son and searched several locations where he'd hidden the smuggled cigars. Police seized more than 850 cigar boxes with about 9,500 cigarettes, worth up to VND2 billion ($86,000).

The police are investigating the case further.