Big Tobacco Smuggling

Aug 22, 2001

Clarke company faces new smuggling claims

Kenneth Clarke, currently embroiled in an increasingly acrimonious bid for the Tory leadership, today faces a major embarrassment through his boardroom connection with the cigarette manufacturer British American Tobacco.

Aug 22, 2001

The multi-million dollar trade route

One of British American Tobacco's exclusive distributors was smuggling at least $12m worth of cigarettes a month into Latin America from Aruba in 1998.

Aug 22, 2001

Whistleblower who asked too many questions faced company’s wrath

He was sacked at the end of 1999. In the ensuing row, the company, Romar Freezone Trading, accused him of incompetence, fraud, alcoholism and blackmail. Attempts were made to threaten him and, he says, to set him up on assault or drugs possession charges.

Aug 22, 2001

About this project: Big Tobacco Smuggling

Mar 03, 2001

The U.S. rises as a transit point for contraband cigarettes

In his statement to Congress in March 2000, the head of U.S. Customs — a former Marine and New York City cop who rose to the rank of police commissioner before turning to federal and international law enforcement — alerted lawmakers to a new and alarming problem. There had been a "dramatic increase" in the number of cigarette imports to the United States, starting roughly in the last half of 1999.

Mar 03, 2001

Global illicit cigarette trade: What’s next?

The proliferation of tobacco smuggling is so widespread that it is sometimes hard to distinguish between criminal organizations, which do the actual smuggling, and the manufacturers who feed it and often oversee it.

Mar 03, 2001

Cyprus: Big Tobacco’s favorite smuggling hub into the UK

On August 28, 2000, a ship owned by Greek Cypriot Christos Tornaritis attempted to ram a patrol boat of armed customs officers off the coast of Crete. The officers had tracked the 1,542-ton Cambodian-registered freighter from the Cyprus port of Limassol to Port Said, Egypt. It was now bound for Latvia. The officers seized the "Marina" and discovered 7 million packs of British-made cigarettes on board, brands normally smoked only in the United Kingdom.

Mar 03, 2001

Africa: Disguising BAT’s involvement in cigarette smuggling

Letters discovered in BAT's archives in Guildford, England, are some of the most explicit pieces of evidence of the company's involvement in cigarette smuggling, in this case in central Africa.

Mar 03, 2001

Philip Morris’ Mafia connections

The killing of two Guardia di Finanza agents in Brindisi, Italy, reflects the powerful underworld interests involved in tobacco smuggling into Italy.

Mar 03, 2001

In Latin America, Big Tobacco partners with money launderers, smugglers

Twenty miles off the northern coast of Venezuela lies a tiny, sunbaked island called Aruba. Like so many self-governing Caribbean islands that cling to the coast of the Americas, it has been a smugglers' paradise since colonial times. For decades, it also has been a linchpin in an illegal tobacco trade that Colombian authorities claim comprised as much as 90 percent of cigarettes sent into Colombia.

Mar 03, 2001

Canada’s cigarette smuggling corridor

Dino Bravo, a former World Wrestling Federation wrestler and mob enforcer, was sitting in his leather recliner, programming his new VCR on March 12, 1993, when two men walked into his luxury home just north of Montreal and shot him seven times in the head. Police later found in his home stacks of cash and documents related to the cigarette smuggling business.

Mar 03, 2001

Tobacco companies linked to criminal organizations in lucrative cigarette smuggling

A year-long investigation by the ICIJ shows that tobacco company officials at BAT, Philip Morris, and R.J. Reynolds have worked closely with companies and individuals directly connected to organized crime in Hong Kong, Canada, Colombia, Italy and the United States.

Nov 07, 2000

Tobacco firms used suspected drug traffickers, EU lawsuit claims

A European Union lawsuit against two major U.S. tobacco companies says RJR Nabisco had dealings with suspected narcotics traffickers in Spain and money-laundering suspects in the Caribbean, and claims that smuggling activities by Philip Morris "have enabled drug lords to launder their illicit profits."

Jun 15, 2000

U.K. considering formal investigation into cigarette smuggling

The British government is considering launching an in-depth investigation into "extremely serious" allegations of international tobacco smuggling by giant tobacco multinational BAT (British American Tobacco).

May 23, 2000

Philip Morris accused of smuggling, money-laundering conspiracy in racketeering lawsuit

Philip Morris, the world's largest tobacco multinational, has engaged in smuggling and drug-money laundering for years in a scheme to avoid taxes and boost sales of its cigarettes, according to allegations in a new racketeering lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court.

Feb 02, 2000

Global reach of tobacco company’s involvement in cigarette smuggling exposed in company papers

In its search to maintain and enlarge cigarette markets and corporate revenue, British American Tobacco exploited a sophisticated network of smuggling routes throughout Asia.

Jan 31, 2000

Exposed: How billions of cigarettes end up on black markets

Major tobacco multinationals implicated in cigarette smuggling, tax evasion, documents show.