Counterfeit cigarettes made of human poo, mould and dead flies found Midlands
Sep 9 2012 by Mike Lockley, Sunday Mercury
UNDERCOVER detectives investigating the booming backstreet counterfeit cigarette trade in the Midlands have found fags made from human excrement, asbestos, mould and dead flies.
Gumshoes working for the tobacco industry have spent weeks rummaging through litter bins in a bid to discover the scale of Birmingham’s black market cigarette industry.
And they have been stunned by the sheer volume of the illicit trade.
One third of the packets fished out of public bins or plucked from the pavement were fakes or brought in by smugglers, making Birmingham one of the worst cities in Britain for counterfeit cigarettes.
MS Intelligence, a Switzerland-based company dedicated to helping companies protect brands, found that 30.9 per cent of packets were either bogus or purchased abroad.
Last year the figure in a similar survey was just 14.1 per cent, and the dramatic increase shows that it is fast becoming big black market business.
Punters tempted by apparent bargain buys are taking huge risks. The UK Border Agency has recently intercepted cigarettes containing asbestos, mould and even human excrement.
Sickeningly, a haul found in Derbyshire was made from the crushed bodies of dead flies.
And the firm’s findings may be just the filter tip of the iceberg.
A spokesman for lobby group, the International Tax and Investment Centre, said: “Duty goes unpaid on almost one in three cigarettes smoked in Birmingham.
“But that does not include hand-rolled tobacco, of which Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimates as much as half is sourced on the black market.”
MS Intelligence carried out the research on behalf of a number of cigarette companies who are concerned that plans to introduce plain packaging will help black market tobacco barons flood the market with fakes.
In all, the consumer sleuths collected 13,000 packets in Birmingham between April 3 and May 11.
Most of the bogus brands uncovered originated from the Far East, predominantly from China, and some of the sophisticated packets were almost identical to the real thing.
Operation EDPC – it stands for Empty Discarded Pack Collection – revealed that criminals have changed tactics.
The illicit trade is no longer dominated by so-called “White Van Man” bulk-buying abroad.
An MS Intelligence report states: “Historically, it was made up of genuine brands of tobacco smuggled from lower-priced EU countries. Currently, there are much more counterfeits and, increasingly, illicit ‘whites’.”
Whites are produced abroad legally, but smuggled into the UK where there is no legal market for them.
“Along with counterfeits, illicit whites represent the most significant threat to legitimate trade and tobacco revenues in the UK from large-scale organised criminality,” the intelligence report warns.
One of the most popular ‘whites’ found in the Birmingham sweep is Jin Ling – a cigarette which has enjoyed staggering under-the-counter success. In 2006, they were only found along the Polish border.
Now they are changing hands in at least 16 EU countries.
Former Scotland Yard detective Will O’Reilly, currently carrying out research for tobacco giant Philip Morris International, said mobsters are increasingly turning from peddling hard drugs to tobacco.
Profit margins are said to be just as high because of the scale of the operation, but detection rates are lower and punishment less severe. Recently, heroin and cigarettes have been smuggled together.
“Bring a container of cigarettes into this country and you’re talking a £1.5 million profit,” said Mr O’Reilly. “Organised crime is all over it.
“After a number of years in decline, there has been a sharp rise in illicit cigarettes.
“That’s partly down to the economy – people can’t afford the real product – and it is easier for counterfeiters to copy the packets.
“Plans for plain packaging are simply playing into the hands of organised criminals and counterfeiters because it will be so much easier to make copies.”
“The public must realise they are funding organised crime,” he added.
“Every household pays £180 in tax because of the money lost to the Government.”
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