Editor’s Note: In addition to Dubai and Paraguay, Canadian First Nations’ territories is a major source of illicit whites in North America and beyond. See here, here, and here.
From: American Enterprise Institute
Sin taxes and illicit tobacco: What the empirical research says
Today my colleagues Aparna Mathur, Cody Kallen, and I published a working paper on illicit tobacco. We hope it is the first paper in a series on changes in the tobacco market.
As authorities around the world have increased taxes on tobacco products in order to reduce smoking, illicit (untaxed) tobacco use has increased. Organized criminals have moved from smuggling brands into making their own products, known as illicit whites. They make them legally in jurisdictions like Dubai or Paraguay and then smuggle them into markets where they have paid no tax, and may not contain any of the important warning labels. Some of the criminal groups behind illicit tobacco are implicated in terror financing as well.
