From: News Letter
The axe will shortly fall on the UK’s last remaining tobacco factory, and while health campaigners will be cheering, the closure of Gallaher’s in Ballymena will leave a thousand people without a job.
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In the midst of the blizzard of political mudslinging, pertinent comments made by Japan Tobacco International, the people actually making the decisions, were all but ignored. In its statement on the future of the Ballymena factory, the company drew particular attention to the “illegal trade” in tobacco products.
It is highly unusual for corporate statements to be so explicit. Large companies generally prefer to stick to broad brush references to “economic conditions” or “industry trends”.
That JTI would chose to explicitly reference “illegal trade”, i.e. smuggling and counterfeiting, suggests that this is something that is really sticking in the corporate craw.
In 2011 JTI gave evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster, stating that 17 per cent of cigarettes and 59 per cent of hand-rolling tobacco smoked in Northern Ireland was illicit.
In 2013 senior Gardai and Irish Customs officers revealed that Irish republicans were involved in global tobacco smuggling and counterfeit operations, generating annual profits of up to £80million.
At the time, former RUC deputy chief constable Alan McQuillan told ‘The Mail’ newspaper “cigarette smuggling is almost a Cinderella crime. There are few law enforcement agencies really focusing on it.”
Other security sources described the new EU regulations as a “fundraising charter” for Irish republicans.
