From: Independent | Long Read
Almost 45 billion fake cigarettes, which can contain arsenic, pesticides and rat poison, are smoked in the UK each year. Oliver Bennett speaks to the man smoking out the smugglers
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Then there’s a dubious but growing tier of lesser smokes known in the trade as “cheap whites”, including brands such as Jin Ling: the smoker’s equivalent of Diamond White cider. These are currently the majority of illegal seizures and they’re made in the Jebel Ali Free Zone (aka Jafza) in the United Arab Emirates, where at least 25 cigarette producers legally manufacture cheap whites. Made for export, they still end up being smuggled to Europe via the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, where they eventually end up under the counter in the less wholesome high street stores.
Most commonly, cigarettes are smuggled into the UK by bribing lorry drivers to carry it over the border (PA)
Another development is that fake cigarettes, says the 50-year-old ex-cop, are now being made in Europe rather than in the far east, which is why the big four – known collectively and sometimes disparagingly as “Big Tobacco” – are throwing a lot of heat at it.
