Tobacco Smuggling Research Articles

Characteristics of the State of Crimes in Russian Foreign Economic Activities After the Adoption of Special Economic Measures

Currently, foreign trade-related crimes do not only pose a serious threat to the economic and national security of the Russian Federation, but are a considerable obstacle for the international cooperation of the country. Such crimes create conditions for widening the scale of the shadow economy, and contribute to practically all negative trends in the law enforcement sphere of the country. The author analyzes the indices related to the law enforcement work of the customs departments. The latter are immediate participants of customs operation and combat crimes in the sphere of foreign trade within their jurisdiction. In the current geopolitical situation, the Russian Federation used the defense mechanism connected with the application of special economic measures. The author believes that this practice to some degree provoked the criminals to come up with new ways and means of bypassing existing prohibitions and limitations. In the last decade there has been an increase in the number of crimes connected with the smuggling of timber, currency operations with forged documentation, unlawful establishment of a juridical person and unlawful use of documentation to establish a juridical person. Besides, over this period the customs departments have not been able to reduce the number of crimes involving smuggling of cash, alcohol and tobacco, evasion of customs payments and certain duties to any significant extent. The author links this situation to the increase in foreign trade-related crimes committed with the aid of some corrupt officials from the state bodies, as well as the «grey» customs system. It is concluded that the state should continue to improve its law enforcement work in the sphere of foreign trade and economy while taking into consideration the current special economic measures in order to ensure a more efficient counteraction to foreign trade crimes.

THE GRAVITY OF TOBACCO SMUGGLING. PREDICTING BILATERAL ILLICIT CIGARETTE FLOWS FROM AGGREGATE DATA

nternational tobacco smuggling remains an important concern for governments, tobacco manufactur-ers and health experts alike. While often linked to other forms of illegal activities, it also directly impacts govern-ment tax and health policies. Knowledge of factors that contribute to illicit tobacco trade and the existence of smug-gling routes is strongly hampered by the lack of reliable data on bilateral flows of illicit tobacco. Therefore, recon-structing the trafficking routes and estimating the size of cross-border illicit flows are crucial steps for gaining bet-ter understanding of these crimes and enforcing actions aimed at countering them. This study is the first to use grav-ity estimation techniques to decompose aggregate illicit cig-arette inflows for which data are available into their bilat-eral components. Our approach is a simple and effective method that can serve as a complement to other methods of pinpointing international trafficking flows such as empty discarded pack data or network analysis to help in the fight against illicit tobacco flows. Policymakers, customs officials as well as law enforcement can employ the presented meth-ods as an additional tool in the fight against illicit trade. Keywords: bilateral illicit cigarette trade, gravity model, predictive estimation

Problems of tobacco smuggling in Ukraine

The relevance of the study is explained by the strengthening of the adverse impact of tobacco smuggling on economic and social processes in Ukraine. The purpose of the study was to determine the specific features of the interpretation of the category “smuggling” in the legislative and general scientific contexts, to explore the problem of smuggling of tobacco products in Ukraine. General scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, observation and the graph-analytical method of presenting research results are used in the research. The definition of “smuggling” was analysed according to Ukrainian and foreign legislation, and according to general approaches. The interpretation of the smuggling category differs depending on the aspects of the application. Thus, according to the general lexical content, smuggling is understood as the illegal movement of goods across the customs border. And at the legislative level, smuggling usually includes the illegal import or export of specific groups of goods, the list of which is established by the legislation of the state. The adverse influence of smuggling on the economic and social processes in the state is determined. The problem of tobacco smuggling in Ukraine is analysed. In recent years the area of smuggling flows of tobacco products in Ukraine has changed significantly. Conventionally, Ukraine was one of the main source countries smuggling tobacco products that were illegally supplied to EU countries. The need to introduce criminal liability for the smuggling of tobacco products in Ukraine is substantiated based on the study of foreign experience and the determination of the consequences of such smuggling for the economy and social sphere.

The Transformation of Tobacco Factories and Depots in İstanbul Waterfront

Since the 17th century, tobacco has been an important economic resource and a source of employment for hundreds of thousands of people both in the Ottoman Empire and throughout the Republic period. It has been an important source of employment, especially for the low-income female population. Tobacco control and management were given to the French Régie Company within the framework of the capitulations given to the French in the Ottoman Period, and subsequently the Tekel (İnhisarlar) administration in the Republic Period, also caused many social events. Tobacco, which entered the Ottoman lands in the 17th century, was banned several times over time for various reasons, as in many societies, and many people were punished. Monopoly management of tobacco as Tekel (İnhisar) was accepted for the first time in 1862, to centralize its production in 1861 and control tobacco smuggling and production. Since the 19th century, tobacco factories and warehouses have been built in districts of İstanbul such as Cibali, Üsküdar, and Kabataş, and sometimes they have been temporarily in existing historical buildings. With the development of tobacco production and factories, these buildings, which served different purposes until the 1980s, were later abandoned, some of them were demolished due to urban growth and development, and some of them have survived to the present day by transformation through restoration and renovation. Therefore, this article focuses on the transformation of tobacco factories and warehouses in the coastal areas of İstanbul as an industrial heritage.

Identification of the Problems in Counteracting the Smuggling of Tobacco Products in the Republic of Bulgaria

The purpose of this study is to identify problems in the policies to combat tobacco smuggling in the Republic of Bulgaria in legal, organizational-coordination, communication, economic and socio-cultural aspects and to propose measures to improve the fight against tobacco smuggling legal, organizational-coordinating, communication, economic and social-cultural aspects, to propose measures to improve the combating of tobacco smuggling in the country and to propose a conceptual model for improving the countermeasures against the smuggling of tobacco products in the Republic of Bulgaria. The model includes not only the processes, but also the participants in it. The purpose of the model is to determine a leading institution in the fight against tobacco smuggling, which will ensure coordination, communication and interaction between the competent state structures in the implementation of measures to fight against smuggling, control the movement of risky goods and cargo on the territory of the country. The proposed new model to improve the existing one is upgraded as the essential elements of the anti-tobacco smuggling system by its participants, reflects in time the internal and external changes of the security environment and related new challenges and socio-economic factors, which have an impact on changing the management system of these processes. The model reflects the information security in the field of international cooperation and the acquisition of information about the changes in the security environment, in relation to the smuggling of tobacco products, the changes in the socio-economic factors that can lead to the stimulation or reduction of the level of this organized crime. This supports the improvement of the organizational-communication aspect as part of the general international and national policy to counter tobacco smuggling, aimed at sharing common resources, planning at the international level and adapting national structures in terms of operational, tactical and technological provision of this counteraction. The research is based on the decomposition and analysis of public policies that implement and contribute to countering tobacco smuggling.

No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone

ObjectiveTo evaluate the common industry claim that higher tobacco taxation leads to higher levels of smuggling, particularly in a limited state capacity setting.DesignThis paper evaluates the effects of a tobacco...

Securing cross-border collaboration: transgovernmental enforcement networks, organized crime and illicit international political economy

ABSTRACT In a globalizing world, cross-border enforcement networks are rapidly emerging as important mechanisms to tackle illicit transnational markets. As a relatively recent mode of cross-border governance, both the IPE and public policy literatures have only just begun to explore the dynamics and implications of cross-border policy networks in general and security networks in particular. Cross-border enforcement networks are similar to current IPE conceptions of transgovernmental networks, yet the comparative analysis of such networks in this article shows that they extend, and differ, from transgovernmental networks. Instead, transgovernmental enforcement networks are emerging as a comparable but distinct transnational model and thus warrant emancipation as an object of study in their own right. By exploring two network cases concerned with US-Canada cross-border tobacco smuggling, the article discerns and describes factors and conditions that account for different outcomes among select U.S-Canada cross-border security networks: IBET/Shiprider and MYGALE. Data was collected by analyzing open primary sources and conducting interviews with subject participants in these policy networks. Based on these observations, the article generates insights that can subsequently be scrutinized using other cross-border policy case studies.

The State’s Attitude and Response to the Threat Posed by Tobacco Smuggling in Ireland 1780–1850

Tobacco as one of the ‘old reliables’ has presented governments with a steady and lucrative revenue stream that continues to this day. The enormous difference between tobacco’s prime cost and that paid by the consumer is due to the imposition of government duties. This revenue was particularly threatened in the period in question by smugglers and their land-based accomplices who were attracted by the considerable profit to be made because of such a differential in price. The state response to this threat included largely ineffectual legislation and the expensive establishment of state agencies to combat this threat. This approach was maintained despite ongoing appeals from economic commentators and members of the tobacco trade for a reduction in duty which they felt would make it uneconomical for smuggling to continue.

Los Adaes, the First Capital of Spanish Texas

Los Adaes, the First Capital of Spanish Texas

A Traceable and Verifiable Tobacco Products Logistics System with GPS and RFID Technologies

Tobacco products are an addictive commodity. According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest statistics data, tobacco kills more than eight million people each year. In 2003, the WHO proposed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to provide an effective framework for the control of tobacco products to governments around the world. In the field of tobacco products, the hardest problem is how to prevent counterfeit tobacco products and smuggling. To solve the problems, we proposed a blockchain-based traceable and verifiable logistics system for tobacco products with global positioning system (GPS) and radio-frequency identification (RFID) Technologies. In this research, we provide an overview of system architecture, and also define the protocol and the smart contract in every phase that stores data into the blockchain center. We realized a decentralized database and authentication system that uses blockchain and smart contract technology; every protocol in every phase was designed to achieve the integrity of data and non-repudiation of message. Every tobacco product’s shipping record will be completed by scanning the RFID tag and retrieving the GPS with a mobile reader, where the record will be updated and validated in the blockchain center. In the end, the security and costs of the system were analyzed, and a comparison was made with the EU’s (European Commission) method. Our system is more flexible for transportation, more secure in the communication protocol, and more difficult to tamper and forge data. In general, the proposed scheme solved the problem of tobacco products counterfeiting and tracking issues.

The Price Elasticity of Cigarettes: New Evidence From Spanish Regions, 2002-2016.

There is an agreement in the literature that tobacco price elasticity is around -0.4 for given location. Furthermore, works only focus separately, on the temporal dimension or the spatial dimension, however, there are studies that show the existence of spillovers between different geographical areas due to the spatial dependence in tobacco consumption. The novelty of this study is the measurement of the effect that neighboring regions have on the price elasticity of cigarettes. This study simultaneously analyzed, first, a dynamic spatial model used to measure the price elasticity of cigarettes in the short term and long term of the 47 provinces that make up the Spanish territory, detailing the influence of neighbors. Second, given the spatial arrangement of the elasticities observed in the provinces, we can detect behaviors typical of large-scale illicit trade and cross-border purchasing since geographical location can be an important factor in smuggling, and politicians should take this into account when making price policies. Results reveal that the consumption of the regions is influenced by the consumption of the neighboring regions in the same period. The price elasticity of cigarettes in the long term exceeds in many cases, in absolute value, unity. This result is novel because tobacco has historically been treated as an inelastic demand good. Finally, we found that the regions that are most sensitive to price are those bordering France and Gibraltar or tourist regions, demonstrating the effect that smuggling has on the behavior of the regions. These results are important because the price in Spain is set by the central government and fiscal policies regarding the price of tobacco can have different effects in different regions. This study has shown that the consumption of cigarettes is influenced by the neighboring regions and also measured different sensitivities for each region. Regional cooperation in tobacco control policies may have better effects than the elaborated policies based on historical information. Policy makers should consider that tobacco could be an elastic good in the long term and that cooperation between countries in terms of price differential should be taken to avoid tobacco smuggling. The allocation of resources to control smoking should consider the special dependence shown in this report. Also, academics should account for spatial dependence to measure tobacco consumption instead of temporal analysis.

The Underminers: Booming Illicit Trade of Roll Your Own and Waterpipe Tobacco in Turkey.

The aim of this study is to specify the reasons and extents of illicit Roll-Your-Own (RYO) and waterpipe tobacco (WPT) markets which broke out in Turkey and to determine the destruction of these markets over the effectiveness of main tobacco control measures, the effect of this destruction on increase in tobacco use and the measures that can be taken. Reliable data about illicit trade are quite limited. This study was prepared through using the recommended methods on illicit trade in "Methods for Evaluating Tobacco Control Policies" published by the International Agency For Research On Cancer (IARC) and "Understand, Measure, and Combat Tobacco Smuggling" published by the World Bank. RYO and WPT markets are almost totally illicit in Turkey. These markets serve to tobacco outbreak by increasing total tobacco use far beyond the official data through its size surpassing 30% of total consumption and they have begun to invalidate all of the principle tobacco control measures by hindering and undermining them. In order to implement tobacco control measures effectively in Turkey, these illicit markets must be included in system by doing necessary regulations promptly. It is strongly needed that illicit RYO and WPT production and trade should be described as newly emerged threat areas in tobacco control literature, since other countries may suffer from similar problems.

Illegal tobacco demand: The case of Western Balkan

This paper investigates tobacco smuggling in the Western Balkans, a region notorious as the main smuggling route for Western European countries. Data from a large-scale nationally representative survey from seven Western Balkan countries are used to explore smoking habits, attitudes about the illicit market, and characteristics of smokers associated with illicit market demand. Our results show that, while there are substantial differences between countries in the prevalence of illicit market purchases, the attitudes of people across countries are not dissimilar. The logit model is estimated to analyse the characteristics of illicit market buyers. The results show that purchasing on the illicit market can best be predicted by variables approximating people’s social status. People with lower income and higher levels of addiction are more likely to buy illegal tobacco.

Tracking and tracing the tobacco industry: potential tobacco industry influence over the EU’s system for tobacco traceability and security features

BackgroundSubsequent to the transnational tobacco companies’ (TTC) history of involvement in tobacco smuggling, the Illicit Trade Protocol (ITP) requires that tobacco tracking and tracing (T&T) systems be established independent of...

Tobacco industry’s elaborate attempts to control a global track and trace system and fundamentally undermine the Illicit Trade Protocol

BackgroundThe Illicit Trade Protocol (ITP) requires a global track and trace (T&T) system to reduce tobacco smuggling. Given the tobacco industry’s (TI) historical involvement in tobacco smuggling, it stipulates that...

Size and scope of the tobacco trade on the darkweb

ABSTRACTGlobally, tobacco is responsible for the death of approximately 6 million individuals per year. In reaction, governments have enacted tobacco control policies that cope with the harmful effects of the drug. However, these policies have also created geographic price disparities and increased the effort needed to purchase legal tobacco products. The result was the creation of a new illicit tobacco market. While tobacco smuggling continues through conventional avenues, a new generation of traffickers have turned to a different source for the illicit distribution of tobacco – the internet, specifically the darkweb. The purpose of this paper is to describe the size and scope of illicit trafficking of tobacco on cryptomarkets, and the diverse types of tobacco-related products available on the cryptomarkets. Our analysis will provide guidance for policymakers, researchers, and all interested in the illicit trade of tobacco.

Tobacco smuggling in Eritrea

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.

Предметы контрабанды алкогольной продукции и табачных изделий

The article is dedicated to the issues related to determination of the alcohol and tobacco smuggling subject as a crime stipulated by Article 2002 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (CC RF). The author reviews the correlation between the “crime subject” and the “smuggling article” notions from the criminal law theory standpoint, points out the difference in their content and concludes that a new criminal law notion is formed — “smuggling article”, which defines the goods (items) listed in Articles 200¹, 200², 226¹ and 229¹ of the CC RF, where criminal liability is established for their illegal transfer across the customs (state) border. The author indicates the blanket character of Article 200¹ of the CC RF and analyzes the “alcohol product” and “tobacco good” notions considering international agreements, supranational acts of the EAEC and the EAEU and Russian laws and regulations. The alcohol product and tobacco good types are listed and briefly characterized. The notions of falsified, undue quality and counterfeited alcohol products and tobacco goods are given. The author reviews some issues related to classification of illegal transfer of falsified, undue quality and counterfeited alcohol products and tobacco goods across the customs border of the Customs Union; describes approaches to determination of large-scale smuggling of alcohol products and tobacco goods, analyzes the clarifications of the resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of April 27, 2017, No. 12 On Judicial Practice in Smuggling Cases on this issue.

Общественная опасность и объект контрабанды алкогольной продукции и табачных изделий

The article reviews the issues related to determination of public danger and the object of alcohol and tobacco smuggling as a crime stipulated by Article 2002 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (CC RF). The author pays attention to the fact that illegal circulation of alcohol and tobacco constitutes a menace to the citizens’ health and normal development of market relations, economic interests of the Russian Federation as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Public danger of illegal transfer of alcohol and tobacco across the customs border of the EAEU (customs border of the Eurasian Economic Community) is primarily related to infliction of damage to the market economic relations developing in the EAEU area forming a common customs territory. The article states that additional direct objects of the crimes defined in the CC RF as smuggling performed by illegal transfer of smuggling objects across the customs border of the Customs Union within the EAEC (Articles 200¹, 200², 226¹ and 229¹ of the CC RF) are public relations related to the established procedure of good (item) transfer across the customs border of the Customs Union within the EAEC, while the main direct objects of these crimes differ; so they are included in separate chapters of the CC RF. Based on the fact that the main indirect object of alcohol and tobacco smuggling is derived from the generic object of crimes included in Chapter 22 of the CC RF and the results of the performed analysis, the author concludes that on the current stage of EAEU functioning and theoretical comprehension of the influence of appearance of this international organization of regional economic integration on determination of public relations protected by criminal law, it is optimal to acknowledge public relations securing compliance with the market economy and good faith competition principles at carrying out of international economic activities between the EAEU member states and other states (non-EAEU members) as the main direct object of alcohol and tobacco smuggling.

Tobacco smuggling estimates based on pack examination in Ukraine

Tobacco smuggling estimates based on pack examination in Ukraine