When South Africa banned the sale of all alcohol and tobacco in early 2020, the intent was clear and noble: free up hospital beds so they would be available for COVID patients – and reduce tobacco consumption while a respiratory disease is ravaging the country.

Gleitsmann Security Inks (GSI) has launched what it terms the ‘world’s first traffic light for banknotes’, in the form of mouveGSI, a unique security feature that will also help safeguard security documents such as tax stamps using luminescent colour effects.

Over the past few months, a number of interesting tenders for tax stamps and track and trace systems have been issued by various revenue authorities across the world. Most of these tenders are characterised by two things: 1) their need for extensive systems that cover physical tax stamps, secure track and trace, and even production line monitoring; 2) their need for systems that cover a wide range of products.

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.

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).

The news of the untimely demise of Mr U K Gupta has left the Authentication Solution Providers’ Association (ASPA) family and the entire authentication industry in shock.

Following the 2019 launch of its tax stamp and traceability programme on locally manufactured and imported beer, spirits, wine, soda, mineral water and tobacco products, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has far exceeded some of the key performance targets set for the programme.

The call for papers for Optical & Digital Document Security™ (ODDS) conference, the new security technology ‘super-event’, is now available from the event website. Organised by Reconnaissance International, this conference – to be held in Vienna, Austria, 17-19 January 2022 – brings together Reconnaissance’s two successful technical conferences to cover the key security and protection topics that have become more pressing in our digital age.

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.

The growth of informal economic activity has become a challenge throughout the Latin American region. To address this, the Swiss-Chilean Chamber of Commerce recently held a webinar to discuss the challenges of informality (in employment, government, taxation), as well as the actions that policymakers, in the region and elsewhere, could take to halt an increasing trend resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

CCL Design has announced a partnership with iTRACE Technologies, a leading provider of supply chain security applications for anti-grey and anti-counterfeit markets. The partnership will integrate the iTRACE 2DMI® smartphone authentication capability with CCL Design’s HP Indigo-based security label production.

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.

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.

The illicit fuel trade in Benin has soared since 1980, and the situation isn’t much better today, reports David Zounmenou for ISS Today.

In the January issue of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, we launched a new series on the use of tax stamps and associated track and trace systems in different regions of the world, starting with Africa. This month, we shift the focus to Asia and Australasia.

The Australian brand protection and consumer engagement solutions provider YPB Group has launched MotifMicro™, its forensic, smartphone-readable, anti-counterfeit technology for high-volume applications, which will provide individualised markers for products and documents.

Following its 4th Annual General Meeting, held in May 2021, the International Tax Stamp Association (ITSA) has appointed four directors to its board.

In April, Reconnaissance International held a one-hour webinar to present its new review 'Tax Stamps & Traceability: A Market Analysis and Technical Update' to over 200 registrants. The co-editor of the review, Nicola Sudan, was joined by its two main contributors: Michael Eads (ME) of Sovereign Border Solutions, and Richard Jotcham (RJ) of Axess Technologies.

Georgia has a remarkably successful tobacco tax stamp programme which has been reported on in Tax Stamp & Traceability News™ (TSTN). Here we interview two managers from the Revenue Service of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia (GRS), Levan Dgebuadze, head of the Service Department, and Samson Uridia, head of the International Relations Department, to find out more about it.

In March, the consortium of Authentix, Inc, MITAS Corporation and AJCL Private Limited finalised a licence agreement with the Pakistan Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to implement a track and trace system on tobacco, cement, sugar and fertiliser. The agreement covered an initial five-year term, with a three-year extension option.