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Cigarettes seized  

A MAN was arrested and contraband cigarettes were seized at a supermarket in Stilfontein, North West police said

The police's tactical operations unit and the Hawks responded to a tip-off on Monday about the cigarettes being stored at the supermarket, said Brigadier Thulani Ngubane.

A 52-year-old Portuguese man, believed to be the shopkeeper, was arrested and would appear in the Klerksdorp Commercial Crime Court today.

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5 million contraband cigarettes destroyed  

re than five million contraband cigarettes were destroyed by the SA Revenue Service (Sars) in Polokwane, the tobacco industry said on Monday.

They were seized in raids on retailers, resellers and wholesalers over several months, Francois van der Merwe, chairperson and CEO of the Tobacco Institute of SA (Tisa) said.

"If these cigarettes were sold in South Africa, the loss in excise duties to Sars would have been R2 469 090."

Tisa destroyed the cigarettes for Sars last week, using custom-built mills that shredded them into fine pieces.

The shreddings were ploughed into landfill sites.

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• Special Assignment investigates the world of tobacco mules  

In the latest episode of Special Assignment, which will air on 26 January on SABC3, the team shows viewers the fascinating but scary world of tobacco mules. This is a small but organised and significant side of the illegal tobacco smuggling business which thrives on transporting small consignments of illegal tobacco from Zimbabwe to South Africa using various routes and modes of transport.

“Gold Leaf”: a Special Assignment investigation

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Cape Town drivers told 'don't flick butts'  

Smoking drivers will have to watch their butts in South Africa's tourist drawcard Cape Town after a new hotline was launched for motorists to report those who flick cigarette ends out the window.

AFP - Smoking drivers will have to watch their butts in South Africa's tourist drawcard Cape Town after a new hotline was launched for motorists to report those who flick cigarette ends out the window.

"We are getting quite a lot of calls on the butt line," said an operator who answered the hotline on Wednesday.

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Counterclaims cloud hookah war 

A tobacco tycoon whose merchandise keeps hubbly bubbly pipes burning across the country is facing kidnapping and assault charges.

Alaa Sabra stands accused of having an associate roughed up in an underground bunker in Cape Town in what has been described as the "hookah war".

Sabra this week dismissed the charges as "trumped-up", saying he was the victim after a brazen robbery in which R150000 was stolen from a drawer in his office.

His company, Nakhla Tobacco, imports millions of rands' worth of molasses tobacco from Egypt. It has offices in Johannesburg, Durban, East London, Cape Town, Mauritius and Mozambique.

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Hookah man gone in puff of smoke  

A MAN who accused a local hubbly-bubbly tobacco tycoon of kidnapping and assault in an underground bunker has fled South Africa.

Egyptian national Mohamed Ahmed claimed that Alaa Sabra, an Egyptian immigrant with South African citizenship, and two other men, roughed him up in Cape Town last year after he started a rival tobacco importing business.

Now, Ahmed instead faces charges and has allegedly skipped the country with a warrant for his arrest being issued.

Sabra's company, Nakhla Tobacco, imports millions of rands' worth of molasses tobacco from Egypt and has offices in Johannesburg, Durban, East London, Cape Town, Mauritius and Mozambique.

"I've said from the beginning that this man is telling lies. I'm the real victim. He broke into my office and stole R150 000 and a cellphone from a drawer," said Sabra.

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Man nabbed over fake cigarettes  

A man was arrested after police found fake cigarettes in his bakkie in East London on Monday morning, said Eastern Cape police.

The fake cigarettes had an estimated street value of R72 000, said Captain Ernest Sigobe.

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Man caught with counterfeit cigarettes  

A man has been arrested after he was found in possession of 285 cartons of counterfeit cigarettes.

Provincial police spokesman, Colonel Jay Naicker, said the 30-year-old suspect had been travelling in a silver Opel Corsa bakkie on the R66 Mvutshini Road in Gingindlovu when he was stopped at a roadblock held by the Gingindlovu SAPS on Thursday.

"The illegal cigarettes, with an estimated street value of R26 250, were found in the rear of the bakkie," he said.

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LETTER: Big Tobacco, the Food & Beverage Industry are not civil society  

Gregg Gonsalves responds to an article by the Global Business Coalition for Health's (GBCHealth)about the United Nations Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) conference held in New York last week.

GBCHealth argued that industries that profit from unhealthy products should be viewed as trusted partners and have a seat at the table during public health negotiations. This is an open letter in response to the article at bottom of page. . . .

I am writing to you to voice the most strenuous objections to the Point of View published on the Global Business Coalition for Health's website, which dares to equate the long struggle for the rights of people with HIV/AIDS and our quest for a seat at the table in decision-making that affects our lives, with the right of the food and beverage industry to participate as civil society during this week's UN NCD Summit.

Though the GBCHealth has had a long history of working on HIV/AIDS, I would have thought that you would be able to distinguish the fight for civil, social and economic rights of people living with AIDS, many of whom are from marginalized groups, such as drug users, sex workers and men-who-have-sex with men, from pushing corporate agendas, whether they are those of big pharma, big tobacco, or big food and beverage.

Please. Equating Nestle or Coca-Cola with people like Gugu Dlamini who lost her life when she revealed her HIV+ status in South Africa, or with the hundreds of now-dead activists who fought big pharma to lower drug prices, secure access to generic drugs, or get the prices down on brand-name ones, is like spitting on all their graves.

It is an abomination.

Big pharma, big tobacco, big food and beverage are not on my side--not until they stop trying to kill generic production of ARVs and drugs for NCDs (i.e. Novartis' continuing attempts to mess with the Indian patent law and access to Glivec); stop selling and promoting cigarettes anywhere on the planet; and until they stop pushing sugary and fatty crap on people around the world with their barrages of advertising and franchises across the globe. . . .

As an HIV-positive person, I stand with my fellow patients, with heart disease, with cancer, with diabetes, with other NCDs, with TB, malaria and other infectious diseases--we want generic access to drugs, increased national funding and donor support for ALL health, and real targets for key health interventions.

You've all tried to divide and conquer us--but it's not going to work this time.

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Tanker loaded with illegal cigarettes  

A petrol tanker filled with contraband cigarettes worth about R2.2-million has been seized at the Beit Bridge border post between South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The driver was arrested, said police spokesperson Ronel Otto. . . .

"The petrol tanker entered the country from Zimbabwe. Police confiscated 900 master boxes and 13 loose cartons of cigarettes," said Otto.

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Counterfeit cigarettes worth R2.2 million seized 

A man was arrested after he was caught with R2.2 million worth of counterfeit cigarettes at the Beit Bridge border post.

The man was arrested during a routine stop and search while trying to enter South Africa in a petrol tanker from Zimbabwe on Friday.

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• TB alert over passing smoking 

Children exposed to passive smoking are more likely to get tuberculosis than their counterparts who are not exposed to tobacco smoke, a Stellenbosch University study has found.

The study, which was carried out on almost 200 children living in Uitsig, Ravensmead and Khayelitsha, found that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), or passive smoking, was responsible not only for respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, but new evidence now showed that children who lived in TB-prevalent communities and are exposed to passive smoke, were more at risk of contracting TB, even if there was no history of TB in their home.

The research, which was published in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease last month, also revealed the more smokers' children were exposed to ETS, the greater the risk of contracting TB.

According to the 18-month study, which was carried out between December 2007 and June 2009, 90 percent of children in Uitsig and Ravensmead were exposed to passive smoking, while 10 percent of those in Khayelitsha were exposed to passive smoking.

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The cigarette that saved lives 

Egg Films' Bruno Bossi recently directed The Cigarette That Saved Lives, a controversial commercial for The DNA Project, a non-profit organisation raising crime scene awareness and fighting crime with science.

"It came as a surprise, as it does to most people, that we do not have the legislative framework in place to more fully use DNA profiling for crime scene investigation in our country," says Bruno.

In South Africa, the National DNA Database only has about 133 000 DNA profiles and there are only two South African Police Services labs that can perform DNA profiling on forensic samples.

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Ex-tobacco employees up for racketeering 

Seven former British American Tobacco employees face racketeering charges if National Director of Public Prosecutions Menzi Simelane grants the go-ahead to amend theft charges against them, the Weekend Argus newspaper reported on Saturday.

The former employees, Pienaar van Heerden and his wife, Anthea, John van der Vent, John van Rooy, Phillip Gorden Heynes, Reginald Fisher and Terrence Keyster, appeared briefly in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on Friday where they are currently charged with stealing more than R6.9 million in cigarette shipments.

When they appeared in court, it emerged that the State was applying to amend the charges to more serious counts of racketeering under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act.

The syndicate’s operations allegedly included the theft of about 590 boxes of cigarettes, mostly Peter Stuyvesant, intercepted while being shipped from the Gauteng plant to the firm’s laboratory in Stellenbosch to undergo quality testing.

Prosecutor Mzukizi Mazandwa asked on Friday that the case be postponed to allow the State to get necessary authorisation from Simelane.

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• Tobacco theft: State comes out smoking 

Seven former British American Tobacco employees could face racketeering charges if National Director of Public Prosecutions Menzi Simelane grants the go-ahead to amend the theft charges against them.

The former employees, Pienaar van Heerden and his wife, Anthea, John van der Vent, John van Rooy, Phillip Gorden Heynes, Reginald Fisher and Terrence Keyster, appeared briefly in the Cape Town Magistrates Court yesterday where they are currently charged with theft involving more than R6.9 million in stolen cigarette shipments.

However, when they appeared in court, it emerged that the State is applying to amend the charges to more serious counts of racketeering under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (Poca).

The syndicate's operations allegedly included the theft of about 590 boxes of cigarettes, mostly Peter Stuyvesant, intercepted while being shipped from the Gauteng plant to the firm's laboratory in Stellenbosch to undergo quality testing.

Since October, the Hawks have swooped on the former British American staffers.

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