Tobacco smuggling in Eritrea

Abstract

This paper discusses tobacco smuggling in Eritrea with focus on cigarette smuggling. It reports on how cigarettes and other tobacco products are smuggled into and through Eritrea. Various cigarettes brands, both genuine and counterfeit, from different countries are smuggled into the country and marketed mostly through women and children street vendors. The illicit cigarettes are marketed at prices at 2-5 times lower that legal cigarettes, making them affordable even to price-sensitive smokers. All of the illicit cigarettes fail to comply with the packaging, health-warning labelling and marketing requirements of Proclamation 143/2004: A Proclamation to Provide for Tobacco Control, rendering the tobacco control provisions of the Proclamation inconsequential. Tobacco smuggling is conducted within broader smuggling operations and seems to be an entrenched activity. Compared to customs officers and other law enforcement entities, smugglers are better resourced, better networked and better organized.