The illegal tobacco trade is no trivial matter – taken as a whole it constitutes the third largest ‘supplier’ of tobacco in the world, and the estimated loss of tax revenues around the globe is approximately USD 40 billion. That means that for every 1% we can ‘take back’ from the criminals, governments are effectively increasing their revenue by USD 400 million.
We firmly believe in our right to protect our brands, trademarks and business from criminal activity, and during the three-year period 2020 to 2022 our Anti-Illicit Trade Operations (AITO) team has assisted LEAs with seizures of over eight billion illegal cigarettes or grams of illegal tobacco.
It’s essential that we – and the tobacco sector as a whole – are able to continue to play a role in the fight against illegal trade, working in partnership and cooperation providing authorities with industry expertise and quality information on criminal operations, locations and methods.