Editor’s Note: See also Copying Cleopatra: The Cigarette ‘Made in Egypt’, via Montenegro.
According to leaked Albanian court documents and British customer’s reports, since 2014 around 22 million packets of fake cigarettes have found their way from the Albania Tabak factory, to Elbasan, before being sent onwards to Libya. The case was investigated in 2015 before being put “on hold” whilst prosecutors “waited for information from foreign jurisdictions”. Whilst Albanian prosecutors claim that the case was reopened in 2017,
the factory still operates with impunity today and is now producing up to 175 million packets a year via a partnership with the BVI-based Eques Holding Group.:
From: Exit.al
By Alice Elizabeth Taylor
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According to leaked Albanian court documents and British customer’s reports, since 2014 around 22 million packets of fake cigarettes have found their way from the Albania Tabak factory, to Elbasan, before being sent onwards to Libya. The case was investigated in 2015 before being put “on hold” whilst prosecutors “waited for information from foreign jurisdictions”. Whilst Albanian prosecutors claim that the case was reopened in 2017,
the factory still operates with impunity today and is now producing up to 175 million packets a year via a partnership with the BVI-based Eques Holding Group.
