Neutron activation analysis in forensic investigations: Trace elements characterization of cigarettes

Abstract

Police investigations of the Italian Ministry of Treasury Police involving the illicit sale of tobacco lead to the confiscation of large quantities of smuggled cigarettes. Thousands of tons of cigarettes of different manufacturers are sequestrated yearly in many regions of Italy and different criminal organizations have been identified as unlawful importers. In order to verify whether the recovered smuggled lots of cigarettes come from the official manufacturers, or they have produced illicitly, usually chemical analysis are carried out. By the determination of trace elements content, specific information can be obtained by comparing different brands of cigarettes and different batches of tobacco. In this work, samples of tobacco of cigarettes manufactured by the Italian State Monopoly, taken as “reference samples”, have been compared with those of illicit origin. Elements such as Co, Br, Cr and Sc have been found to be useful for the selective characterization. The results, submitted to statistical elaboration, provided important information on the origin of smuggled cigarettes.