From: Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
In a rundown warehouse in Ukraine near the Romanian border, an undercover reporter seeks to enter the illegal cigarette trade. It is surprisingly easy.
“What kind of cigarettes? Saint George, something else? How many boxes or sleeves?” asks the warehouse owner. There are no questions asked and no papers needed.
This dialogue recurred dozens of times on the illegal cigarette route along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. A team of undercover reporters from the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism (www.crji.org) together with Ukrainian colleagues tracked down smuggling routes through the European Union’s Eastern borders.
Romanian and Ukrainian smugglers offered the investigative team duty-free cigarettes, illegally manufactured cigarettes, fake brands such as LML (an imitation of L&M) as well as legally produced Ukrainian cigarettes that illegally entered Romania through border check points or the so-called “green zone,” the mountainous areas between them.
Officials from both countries complain about the growing level of cigarette smuggling but little is done to stop it. Huge quantities of legally produced Ukrainian cigarettes find their way into Romanian and other EU illegal markets. There is evidence that Ukrainian politicians are involved in the illegal tobacco trade along the borders. At the same time, overwhelmed law enforcement authorities can only rely on tips before attempting seizures of smuggled cigarettes, and even these operations target just a fraction of the trade: duty-free land border shops allowing small-scale, “legal” smuggling are the main sources of contraband.
The Smugglers’ Bazaar
The investigative team’s journey began in Suceava, a town in northeast Romania not far from the Ukrainian border. The Suceava bazaar is a main hub for the distribution of Ukrainian goods onto the Romanian market. Trucks and vans collect all sorts of merchandise, food and spirits for transport. Ukrainian goods are considerably cheaper than their Romanian versions, so sellers can easily find customers. The bulk of the trade is in cigarettes. Ukrainian-made cigarettes are found in the Suceava bazaar at prices well below the Romanian official market price. A pack of Marlboro, for example, can be bought for €1 while the pack’s price in a Romanian shops is at least 50 percent higher.
