In France and the UK, there have been recent news stories of cigarette packs identified in the market as illicit because they were all carrying the same ID number (when this number should in fact be unique to each pack). What was not mentioned in these reports, however, was whether or not the packs were carrying authentication labels, which they are obliged to do under the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).

In April, Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Industry and Trade welcomed a delegation of public and private sector officials from its West African neighbour Mali, who were seeking to draw inspiration from Burkina Faso’s experience in tobacco product traceability.

According to media website dawn.com, there are gaps in the picture with regard to The World Health Organisation’s award to Pakistan for its anti-tobacco efforts.

Europol’s Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment 2021 (SOCTA-21) provides a detailed account of the dramatic impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on organized crime, illicit markets in general and the illicit tobacco market in the EU in particular.

It’s not often that we hear members of the tobacco industry complaining that a tax authority is not issuing tax stamps – in fact, the complaints are usually because the opposite is true.

In the July 2016 issue of Tax Stamp News™, Sven Bergmann of Venture Global Consulting covered a report by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute – a conservative policy think tank in Ottawa, Canada – on the illicit tobacco trade in Canada.

A comprehensive new e-library focusing on tobacco taxation and illicit trade has been launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Knowledge Hub at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP). A project two-and-a-half-years in the making, it is set to be a valuable resource for students, researchers and policymakers across the globe.

First, we hear that the Pakistan Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is on the point of awarding a track and trace contract for tobacco, sugar, cement, fertiliser and beverages to the highest scoring bidder in its latest tender. Then in the next breath, we learn that complaints have been received against the FBR over anomalies in the bid evaluation process.

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.

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.