The European Union represents the world’s first attempt at implementation of wide-scale, multi-country tobacco traceability and the largest iteration of the FCTC Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products (the Protocol) in action. The implications in relation to one of the world’s largest tobacco market’s interpretation and implementation of the Protocol, as well as the benefits that traceability can provide in terms of combatting illicit trade, has the significant potential to influence tobacco traceability the world over.

A new study focusing on the trends and challenges of counterfeit and illicit trade in the high-tech sector – as well as the technologies for combatting such trade – provides interesting insights that are of relevance to other industries, including excise products.

The UK tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has unveiled proposals for tougher sanctions against small-scale sellers of illicit tobacco, while at the same time putting in place its post-Brexit tobacco supply chain control measures.

In the February issue of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, we launched a series of articles by Chander S Jeena, on the illicit tobacco trade in Southeast Asia and how it is being dealt with. This month we continue the series with an update on the situation in Cambodia.

It has been a decade since Luk Joossens et al published their influential study on the global illicit cigarette market, which examined a sample of 84 countries, and found that 11.6% of the world’s cigarette market was illicit. The study also found that eliminating illicit trade in cigarettes globally would reduce cigarette consumption by 2%, generating at least $31 billion in tax revenues, and preventing millions of deaths.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives, health and financial well-being of many across the globe. Unfortunately, though, it did not disrupt illicit trade, which is not only alive and well but actually thriving as the pandemic rages on. Countless government and news reports show that the pandemic has created ideal conditions for illicit trade to grow and present an ever-increasing threat.

One of the largest illegal cigarette factories ever discovered in the Netherlands has been dismantled by law enforcement, with 13 arrests and seizures of 3.6 million cigarettes and 32 tonnes of tobacco.

In September, the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group, a key partner in the STOP campaign (Stopping Tobacco Organisations and Products) published a case study and profile on South Africa and the country’s handling of the illicit tobacco trade.

In the February issue of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, we launched a series of articles by Chander S Jeena, on the illicit tobacco trade in Southeast Asia and how it is being dealt with. This month we continue the series with an update on the situation in Malaysia.

Cigarettes and tobacco products were the most reported counterfeit goods in the UK in 2019/20, according to a survey conducted by the country’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and IP Crime Office.