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An ICIJ Investigation

Tobacco Underground

The world’s most widely smuggled legal substance fuels organized crime and corruption, and robs governments of needed tax money.

  • Working with reporters in more than a dozen countries, ICIJ is charting the frontlines of the illicit traffic in cigarettes.
  • Relying on interviews with insiders and thousands of internal industry documents, reporters pieced together how smuggling played a key role in big tobacco’s strategy to boost sales and increase market share.
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