Tobacco.org

King Tobacco, Balkan Crime Lord 

Cigarette counterfeiting and smuggling in the Balkans is one of the primary drivers of crime and corruption in the region, according to a coalition of investigative reporting projects.

Bosnia-Herzegovina alone is estimated to lose $200 million each year in tax revenue from tobacco smuggling, a sum that could approach billions worldwide.

The Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project, with bureaus and partners in Sarajevo, Albania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and else- where, has assembled a massive investigative package on tobacco smuggling, and particularly the involvement of government officials in the region.

High prices and taxes on tobacco in the West are driving the smuggling boom, with a packet of cigarettes purchased in Ukraine for less than a euro selling for seven euros in London. . . .

Source:

"Project: Tobacco" Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project, February 2008

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• Turkey Immersed in Smoke despite Imminent Ban 

Despite the complete smoking ban that is supposed to come into force in September, Turkey is immersed in cigarette smoke, national media reported.

A new law that prohibits smoking in all public places, including cafés, restaurants and bars, was voted and approved in January. It is expected to come into force in September.

Despite the impending ban, however, Turkey shows no sign of cutting down or giving up on cigarettes. A recent publication of the Anatolian Agency contained some facts indicative of the trend: in 2007, 76 packs of cigarettes were smoked per person and around 22.5 million euros are spent on cigarettes daily.

Other data shows that nearly half of Turkey’s population – about 25 million people, smoke. Beside being a major consumer, the country is also a major tobacco producer.

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• Cigarette smuggling 'goes through the roof' 

CIGARETTE smuggling into Ireland has “gone through the roof” due to the emergence of a new form of highly organised trafficking from the Baltic states.

Figures show that so-called “ant smuggling” has resulted in a 240% rise in cigarette seizures in the last two years. Ant smuggling refers to the frequent trafficking of relatively small quantities of contraband.

Customs say there are now an average of 1,300 cigarette seizures every month.

“The number of seizures has gone through the roof, because we have a new phenomenon now called ‘ant smuggling’ from the new member states,” said Ursula O’Neill of Customs Investigations.

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• The Balkans: land of Europe's inveterate smokers 

The Balkans are home to Europe's most inveterate smokers, where 30 to 40 percent of all adults are gripped by the habit, a major cause of premature death.

"People in that part of Europe smoke the most compared to the continent as a whole," World Health Organization (WHO) director for Europe, Marc Danzon, told AFP on the sidelines of a regional conference on smoking prevention, held last week in Sofia.

Government representatives of eight of the countries in the region - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, and Serbia and Montenegro - met there to discuss smoking prevention and regulation.

"Relatively little importance has been attributed until now to the battle against tobacco smoking," Danzon said.

The lack of action could be explained by "the power of the tobacco industry lobby, weaknesses of the regulatory, police and judicial systems, the presence of corruption and organized crime and its links to cigarette smuggling," the World Bank said in a recent report.

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ALTADIS closes Balkan Star deal. 

On November 4th, Altadis has closed the acquisition of Balkan Star. All required authorisations having been granted, the Group acquired 80.75 % of Balkan Star for a consideration of Euro 147 million on a cash free, debt free basis.

The transaction is funded from existing Altadis credit facilities.

Altadis has extended the offer to the minority shareholders holding the remaining 19.25% of the share capital of Balkan Star on the same terms and at the same price per share that is paid to the controlling shareholders. That offer will be closed in December and is expected to bring Altadis shareholding very close to 100 %.

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Agency defends Djukanovic allegation 

Thursday The Italian news agency ANSA today named the Mafia division of Italian police as the source of information that money from tobacco smuggling in Montenegro is held in Cyprus banks.

ANSA director Pier Luigi Magnaschi was responding to Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic calling the agency's journalist a liar...

The agency linked Djukanovic to what it claims is more than five hundred million euros from tobacco smuggling held in banks in Cyprus.

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• Cigarettes Keep Smoke Rising From the Balkans 

Three years ago as air raid sirens wailed and NATO jets roared overhead, hundreds of Belgrade residents would queue six abreast on city centre streets--braving bombs for a box of sanctions-busting cigarettes.

Such is the Balkan passion for tobacco.

"Each guy would snatch a carton and cradle it like a baby," recalls Petar Borovic, a doctor and veteran anti-smoking campaigner. "It didn't matter to him that it was pouring with rain and the bombs were coming: he was happy and serene."

That compulsion is a dream come true for global tobacco giants now eyeing the region, where tobacco control is a low priority in the struggle for growth and stability, as in post-communist eastern Europe a decade ago.

It is a nightmare for doctors and especially police, because a decade of wars, sanctions, chaos and corruption have turned the Balkans into a hugely lucrative cigarette smuggling centre.

On Friday, World Health Organisation (WHO) No Tobacco Day, more smoke will be rising from the Balkans than from most other places on earth.

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Croatian tobacco factory official denies involvement in smuggling to Yugoslavia  

The Croatian Rovinj Tobacco Factory [TDR] has rejected the accusations that it is involved in smuggling cigarettes to Yugoslavia, Predrag Grubic, the spokesman of this factory, has told B92. Let us recall the Yugoslav customs officers discovered and seized 80 tonnes of cigarettes at the border with Bulgaria several days ago. The documents which the truck drivers possessed showed that the trucks were supposed to be transporting croissants. Grubic said that the factory wanted to cooperate with authorized Serbian institutions in suppressing unlawful trade of its products.

[Grubic] The TDR rejects all accusations related to tobacco smuggling. TDR is a respectable regional company which conducts business according to highest international standards in both production and business areas. . .

[Announcer] Predrag Grubic believes that there is no reason for accepting the proposal of the People's Peasant Party [NSS, led by Serbian Agriculture Minister Dragan Veselinov] in the Serbian Assembly to ban the Rovinj-based factory from the Serbian market.

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Analysis: Balkans crack down on smugglers -- The Washington Times 

Interior ministers from Albania, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia and Montenegro signed an agreement to fight against terrorism and organized crime. Finance ministers also signed an agreement to fight regional cigarette smuggling.

"Seven Adriatic and Ionian countries agreed to coordinate police operations to prevent illegal trafficking across the region to Italy and other Western European countries," Avni Jasharllari, a chief Albanian anti-trafficking police official, told United Press International Sunday.

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BALKANS: U.N. Hosts Forum To Combat Cigarette Smuggling  

Finance and customs officials from seven Balkan states are scheduled to meet today in the Kosovo capital of Pristina to examine how to combat cigarette smuggling, which results in millions in lost tax revenues. The United Nations is hosting the forum.

"Cigarette smugglers are stealing from the people of Kosovo, and we are talking big bucks here," said U.N. Mission in Kosovo head Michael Steiner. "It is a problem which can only be dealt with comprehensively, at the regional level" (U.N. release, May 6).

"I think they're serious this time," one smuggler who has been involved in the trade for five years told Agence France-Presse. "They are going to make it even more difficult for us. The profits already have gone down compared to last year or the years before. They'll force us all to pay taxes."

"Most of [the smuggled tobacco] comes from Greece, then through Kosovo into Serbia," the smuggler said.

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Balkan countries pledge unified effort to combat cigarette smuggling 

Finance ministers and customs officials from Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Romania and Bulgaria agreed to crack down on the smuggling by stepping up controls at border crossings.

At the one-day conference in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, the officials also agreed to harmonize their tax systems. That move is aimed at preventing smugglers from registering their tobacco in areas where taxes are lower before selling them in areas which impose higher taxes.

The meeting was hosted by the U.N. mission to Kosovo, which has made the fight against organized crime a top priority. The countries represented at the meeting are still struggling to impose greater law and order after decades of communism and political corruption, and a decade of ethnic warfare.

Michael Steiner, the head of Kosovo's U.N. mission, stressed that a common effort is needed to halt cigarette smuggling.

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Balkans seek to curb cigarette smuggling 

Ministers from Balkan countries are meeting in Kosovo today to discuss measures aimed at tackling cigarette smuggling.

One of the proposals put forward is the harmonisation of taxes and tariffs to reduce the incentives for smugglers.

Cigarette smuggling is widespread in the region, and a BBC correspondent says Kosovo is seen as its centre.

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British American Tobacco and the Balkan mafia connection – Kenneth Clarke soiled by association with the smugglers and for misleading parliament 

Reports today [1] reveal that BAT has been working closely with the major figures in Balkan cigarette smuggling – supplying them with cigarettes underpinning large-scale smuggling.  Croatian investigative reporters interviewed a major mafia figure in Croatia, Srecko Kestner [2] who has revealed the connection. Kestner’s testimony shows that BAT had been working closely with Stanko Subotic, the kingpin of Balkan cigarette smuggling, and were close to agreeing a plan to build a factory in Serbia with tax concessions and preferential importer status that would facilitate large scale cigarette smuggling in the region and money laundering for Subotic.  The allegations have already led to a senior Swiss parliamentarian, Peter Hess, resigning from the board of BAT in February [3]. BAT Deputy Director and Tory leadership hopeful, Kenneth Clarke, has yet to respond.

Clive Bates of ASH said:

"Once again BAT is exposed operating deep within territory occupied by organised crime and major tobacco smugglers. They act as though the black market is just another distribution channel, and will work with some very ugly villains to ensure their brands are doing well through smuggling. This isn't just an isolated rogue trader at work, the problem starts at board level and the directors are responsible either for encouraging it or failing to prevent it. . .

"Clarke either mislead parliament deliberately or made his blunt denials without looking into the facts with proper care and diligence - either way, he his soiled by his association with BAT and his willingness to defend them with no questions asked and without properly looking into the way the company operates. These are hardly good credentials for a Tory leadership hopeful and aspiring prime minister."

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• Clarke tobacco firm's smuggling links 

Clarke's office last night refused to comment on the disclosures but revealed that he intends to sever all links with BAT if he wins the Tory leadership.

It has emerged that BAT cut a deal to build a £50 million cigarette factory in former Yugoslavia with multi-millionaire Serbian businessman Stanko Subotic.

An investigation by the Croatian magazine Nacional into the alleged criminal activities of Subotic detailed his cigarette-smuggling operations. It also claimed his money helped to hide former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the commander in charge at the time of the Srebrenica massacre which killed up to 8,000 people. Both men are wanted in The Hague for crimes against humanity. . .

Balkan experts believe that throughout the last decade cigarette-smuggling was a key instrument of the Yugoslav secret service, which used it to help finance the Balkan wars.

The revelation of links between BAT and Kestner has already forced one senior European politician to resign from the company's board. In May Peter Hess, the speaker of the Swiss parliament, quit his job with BAT.

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Criminal gangs running the Balkans 

For under the pressures of war, sanctions and economic collapse, south-eastern Europe has become one vast factory of criminality, turning over vast quantities of migrants, prostitutes, tobacco, guns and drugs, most of which are destined for the world's largest market - the European Union.

The Balkan mafias have sunk their claws into every limb of the former Yugoslavia. Cigarettes produced in Macedonia's three tobacco enterprises are packaged illegally as perfect Marlboro replicas and distributed via Serbia to central Europe and, above all, via Kosovo and Montenegro into Italy.

Behind every apparent nationalist crisis in the region lies a much seedier squabble between mafia bosses . .

The Macedonian crisis, when Albanians and Macedonians almost went to war in late March and early April, was sparked in part by a dispute over the control of the lucrative illegal tobacco smuggling operation into Kosovo.

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