Brazil’s federal police recently pulled back the curtain on a criminal web that had infiltrated the country’s fuel distribution chains. While organised crime in Brazil has been expanding, for some time now, from drug and arms trafficking into biofuel and fossil fuels, the government is yet to take the lead on implementing a nationwide modern fuel traceability system.

Tax Stamp & Traceability News™ readers may remember Carolina Saravia from the 2024 article ‘Chile’s Tobacco Traceability System Uncovers Illicit Production in Santiago’.

The Portuguese government has announced a 2% increase in the price that tobacco companies will need to pay for tax stamps in 2026, alongside a change in the stamps’ background colour.

The International Tax Stamp Association (ITSA) is pleased to announce it will be hosting a webinar on Wednesday 24 September, titled ‘Tax Stamp and Traceability Systems on Excisable Products: What Works, What Fails, What’s Ahead’.

Portugal has become the latest EU member state to officially oppose the European Commission’s proposed reforms to the Tobacco Excise Tax Directive (TED) – especially the one calling for a sharp increase in minimum tax rates. According to Portugal, this will drive consumers to the illicit market, reports The European Business Review.

In the June 2025 issue of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, we reported that KPMG had released its ‘Illicit Cigarette Consumption in Europe’ report for 2024, commissioned by Philip Morris. Prompted by a later in-depth report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the illicit cigarette trade in Hull, a port city on England’s North Sea coast, this article examines the situation in the UK as a whole.

Argentina’s cigarette tax stamps have undergone a redesign following the transformation of the country’s tax authority from the Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos (AFIP) to the Agencia de Recaudación y Control Aduanero (ARCA). While the change reflects new institutional branding and regulatory updates under General Resolution 5603/2024, the stamps’ core optical security features remain firmly in place.

Since 2005, SICPA has been a trailblazer in the tax stamp industry, consistently introducing innovations that have reshaped the market. These include the integration of unique identifiers into tax stamps, the use of cameras to activate stamps on production lines, and the application of security inks for direct marking.

In a long-awaited shift that signals growing legal acceptance of industrial hemp, German customs authorities have begun issuing official tax stamps for hemp flowers containing no detectable tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – the psychoactive compound in cannabis that produces a ‘high’.

Kenya’s Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) is making progress in safeguarding fuel integrity through a technology- driven strategy, according to local news site Citizen Digital.

Smurfit Westrock Security Concepts (SWSC), the Irish high-security printing and identity management solutions provider, has been awarded a contract by Revenue Commissioners (Revenue), Ireland, to provide 110-150 million unique identification codes per year for all tobacco related products imported and sold in the country.

Researchers from the University of Brighton, UK, have developed a handheld, general-purpose sensor device for verifying the authenticity of medicines quickly, accurately and affordably.

According to estimates, in recent years, Pakistan’s illicit economy – which consists of everything from drugs, consumer goods, tobacco, foreign currency, to oil and lubricants – has thrived, costing over PKR. 2 trillion (about $7 billion) annually to its economy (see also ABN June 2025). Tax evasion related to illicit trade in tea, tyres, automotive lubricants, and pharmaceuticals has grown to c. PKR 160 billion per year. In such a scenario, brand protection becomes more critical than ever. This article covers Shell Pakistan’s strategy to combat this growing fight against fakes.

Vietnam has developed a government-backed national product identification and traceability solution known as NDATrace (‘NDA’ stands for ‘National Digital Authentication’) to address the increasing issue of counterfeit and substandard goods in the country. The solution aims to combine previously fragmented systems into a single, trusted platform for data verification across government and private sectors.

Traditionally, the technologies used to catch counterfeit goods and those used to monitor food safety have had little in common. Anticounterfeiting relies on complex visuals – holograms, microtext, or colour-shifting inks – designed to be hard to copy. Food safety, on the other hand, focuses on detecting chemical changes that signal spoilage, like rising acidity or the release of gases.

Almost one year ago, Authentix completed the acquisition of the authentication operations of the Canadian group Meta Materials, specifically involving Nanotech Security Corp, for circa $10 million.

In Authentication & Brand News™, March 2024, we reported on the US state of Georgia’s decision to adopt watermarks and reject QR codes on ballot papers. In May 2025, we highlighted Mohave County’s approval to add security features to its ballots for the 2026 midterm elections, in an effort to restore voter trust.

Researchers at Cornell University, New York, have created an innovative method for detecting altered or fabricated videos, which consists of embedding invisible watermarks in the light sources used in the production of genuine videos. They call this new type of watermarking ‘noise-coded illumination’ (NCI).

The Optical & Digital Document Security™ (ODDS) conference, taking place from 15-17 September in Warsaw, Poland, and supported by the International Optical Technologies Association (IOTA), is the key technical forum for physical, digital, and virtual document security. All arrangements are now in place, and attendance is expected to reach capacity for the three-day event.

In the first half of 2025, while some mints were introducing new developments for enhanced authentication, two major refiners – Argor-Heraeus and ABC Refinery – launched new technologies and product lines to provide verified origin data and support responsible sourcing. This article covers these recent developments.