The South African case study on dealing with illicit tobacco continues to be an interesting one to follow.

Despite great efforts at a global level, illicit trade has grown into a pandemic, and India is no exception.

The menace of illicit seeds continues to haunt farmers across the globe. And when it’s the festive season, the problem starts mushrooming in almost all countries and continents, irrespective of whether it is India in Asia, Ecuador in South America, Georgia in Europe, or Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, and Tanzania in Africa.

The consumption of alcoholic beverages is deeply embedded in many societies worldwide. According to Statista, global consumption in 2019 generated $1.53 trillion in legally registered sales (recorded alcohol), equating to total volume sales of more than 296 billion litres.

Part of any anti-illicit product strategy should ideally include measures to reduce consumer demand for illicit products in the first place. While such measures could include imposing penalties on consumers for buying illicit goods, Taiwan has gone in the opposite direction with a scheme that rewards consumers for buying genuine, compliant goods.

If you rang in the New Year with that hard-to-find bottle of bourbon you had been hunting down in off-the-beaten-path stores or through a private social media collectors’ group, you might have been getting more than you bargained for… you might have gotten counterfeit.

In December last year, Economist Impact, part of the Economist Group, convened a roundtable titled ‘Continental shift: tackling illicit trade in Europe’ to discuss the fundamental changes illicit trade has undergone in Europe and to provide insights into how governments, service providers and industry need to address the issue.

In June, in an unfortunate hooch tragedy (hooch is another word for moonshine – or illicit liquor), more than 100 people lost their lives in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Following the incident, a police raid raised concerns that the state excise policy was inadequate and needed reviewing, especially in relation to the use of tax stamps as an important anti-counterfeiting tool.

In this article, we examine the illicit tobacco trade in Australia and how it is continuing to evolve. We look at what continues to drive smokers to seek illicit tobacco, but also what criminal networks did when looking to source and traffic illicit tobacco products into Australia during the pandemic.

KPMG’s annual study of the illicit trade in tobacco in Europe is a robust and well-established study of illicit trade trends in Europe since its inception in 2006.