Editor’s Note: The report, The Billion Pound Drop, prepared by JTI (Japan Tobacco International) is attached here. The report states, in part (notes omitted, emphasis added):
For smokers who don’t travel abroad, there is a ‘black market’ in tobacco products across the UK, with prices around half that of genuine products sold in legitimate retail outlets. In this ‘black market’, smuggled and counterfeit versions of well-known brands are supplemented with ‘illicit whites’ – products described by the Organised Crime Task Force as being “manufactured for the purpose of smuggling” Law enforcement agencies in the UK, and around the world, have identified organised criminals as being key players in the tobacco ‘black market’.
Europol notes that these groups have become “increasingly active in cigarette smuggling, seen as an attractive alternative to drug trafficking because of its lower penalties and large profits” The European Commission has identified China as being a major source of counterfeit cigarettes entering the EU, with 76% of seizures reported by the Member States originating in China made in 2009/10 by UK authorities were counterfeit or illicit whites. Counterfeit manufacturing has been uncovered across Europe and even in the UK.
