Cigarette Smuggling

The illegal transport, distribution, or sale of tobacco products across a jurisdictional or international border, or their sale without payment of the applicable tobacco excise tax, undertaken primarily to evade the substantial tax typically levied on legal cigarette sales, creating a documented price gap that sustains a large illicit market. The World Health Organization and law enforcement bodies including Europol have documented cigarette smuggling as one of the largest illicit trade categories worldwide by volume, frequently linked to organized crime groups that use the same routes and networks for other forms of contraband, and to counterfeit cigarette production, in which cigarettes are manufactured without any tax payment or brand authorization at all rather than merely diverted from a legitimate taxed supply chain.