SOFIA, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian customs officers have seized 1,610,870 euros (1.73 million U.S. dollars) in cash at a checkpoint near the border with Turkey, the authorities said here on Monday.

       The smuggled cash, the largest amount seized at the Bulgarian border, was found in a bus with Turkish registration traveling from Romania via Bulgaria to Turkey at the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint, the National Customs Agency (NCA) said in a statement.

       The 30 passengers and the driver, a Turkish citizen, did not declare goods, personal belongings or currency values to the customs officers, the NCA said.

       However, the customs officers X-rayed the vehicle and identified areas of suspicious density, the NCA said.

       "Forty packages of euro banknotes were found hidden during the subsequent physical inspection of four different places on the bus," the NCA said.

       Since the beginning of the year, undeclared currency -- mostly euros, U.S. dollars and British pounds -- was found in 14 instances with a total value of 9 million Bulgarian leva (4.95 million U.S. dollars) in the country.