Cigarette smuggling in Austria: 520 million cigarettes illegal!

Cigarette smuggling in Austria: 520 million cigarettes illegal!

Österreich - The illegal cigarette trade has accepted alarming proportions in Austria. This is shown by the current figures from the market analysis "Illegal cigarette consumption in Europe 2024", which KPMG published on behalf of Philip Morris International. Last year, 52.2 billion untrained or fake cigarettes were consumed across Europe, with 38.9 billion of them ending in the European Union (EU), which corresponds to a considerable black market share of 9.2 percent. In Austria, 4 out of 100 cigarettes were illegal, which makes a total of 520 million smuggling goods and led to a tax loss of around 115 million euros.

main suppliers for illegal cigarettes are non-EU countries such as Albania, Belarus, Northern Macedonia and Turkey. These countries use sophisticated methods and technologies to transport illegal cigarettes to the EU. Organized crime has taken advantage of modern techniques-from online marketing to drone logistics to cigarette factories that are operated with forced labor. A raid was recently carried out in Latvia, in which 114 million cigarettes were ensured, which shows that the authorities actively act against these criminal structures.

black market in Europe

The black market share varies greatly within Europe. France leads with 38 percent, followed by Ireland with 32 percent and Great Britain with 26 percent. In the Netherlands, the proportion of illegal cigarettes doubled to 18 percent after tax increases. This led to a decline in income from consumption taxes by 129 million euros. Experts therefore call for a balanced tax policy in order not to drive consumers into the arms of the mafia and not to be asked to check the state blindly.

A look at the greater dimension of the cigarette smuggling shows that an international criminal network has slipped into the EU at least 1.5 billion cigarettes. This network, which has been blown up in recent years, had cigarettes in licensed factories in Turkey and Iran manufactured and then transported the goods into the EU under false information. The investigation, which was initiated by the Hannover customs investigator in May 2020, led to an extensive operation in which more than 150 overseas containers were secured with fake customs declarations.

fight against crime

Combating the cigarette smuggling is a pressing challenge for the EU countries. Every year, European countries have an estimated 19.4 billion euros in tax revenue due to the illegal consumption of cigarettes. The Commission is committed to reforming tobacco taxation, while some politicians, such as the FPÖ MEP Roman Haider, criticize the excessive taxes and demand national control over tax policy.

Overall, it can be seen that the illegal cigarette markets in the EU not only ensure considerable tax losses, but also promote the risk of forced labor and other criminal activities. While the authorities intensively take action against these developments, it remains to be seen which measures are taken to combat the illegal structures sustainably.

For more information on this topic, you can do the articles from Exxpress.at , Kleinezeitung.at and Read.