Tobacco.org

• Moldova officials behind counterfeit cigarette smuggling to EU 

According to a just-released investigative report, Moldova is increasingly at the center of cigarette counterfeiting and smuggling in Europe. Business is booming thanks to the country's new location right on the European Union's border after Romania (which Moldova used to be part of until 1940) joined the EU on 1 January 2007.

Tobacco smuggling is now one of the primary drivers of crime and corruption in the country, which is the poorest nation in Europe. Worldwide, tax losses could amount to $50 billion, according to the Framework Convention Alliance, a consortium of non-profit groups seeking to stop smuggling. . . . Online sellers from Moldova sell counterfeit Marlboros and other imitations of Western brands and ship them to their customers in Europe and the USA via the post office and courier services. It is illegal in almost all countries to import cigarettes without paying custom and excise fees. To circumvent customs, they label their cigarette boxes with fake duty-paid stamps and also falsify the description of the package contents.

NewPort group, a company from the capital of Moldova (address: Albisoara 84/5-23, Chisinau), writes on an online trading web site: "Our company is interested in exporting cheap cigarettes to poor countries in Asia or Africa. We are producers for more then 50 years already. Our production factory is situated in Central-Eastern Europe. Companies interested, please feel free to contact us." . . .

The Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project, a coalition of investigative reporters from EU member states and other European countries, has documented the organized crime business of tobacco smuggling, and particularly the involvement of government officials in the region. According to the researchers, politically connected figures in Moldova control a stake in the state tobacco monopoly but remain hidden behind a shield of official secrecy.

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