From: Balkan Insight
For four years, officials in Cairo, London and Brussels rang alarm bells over the production of billions of cigarettes bearing the name of Egypt’s most popular brand at a state-run factory in Montenegro and, they believed, smuggled across North Africa from lawless Libya. Montenegro, despite negotiating to join the European Union, ignored them.
BIRN | Cairo, Podgorica, Athens, Pristina, Tunis, London, Washington
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According to the findings of the BIRN/ARIJ investigation, Cairo, London and the EU’s anti-fraud office, OLAF, considered the flood of cigarettes coming out of Duvanski Kombinat Podgorica, DKP, “counterfeit”, suspecting they were being channelled to Libyan smugglers who distributed them illegally across North Africa.
Egypt asked repeatedly through diplomatic channels for Montenegro to shut the operation down.
