| UICC GLOBALink Presents... |
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The Tobacco Reference Guide |
| by David Moyer, MD. |
| | Chapter 31 Tobacco exports, imports and smuggling |
| | tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour |
| | Tobacco exports, imports and smuggling: Smuggling |
| | globalink (artefact pour saut de ligne) |
| | The European Union is investigating smuggling activities by RJ Reynolds and whether |
| | the company is selling cigarettes to traders and dealers who immediately resell them |
| | in the black markets to avoid foreign taxes. The director of the EU's anti-fraud unit |
| | commented, "As Reynolds has previously refused any cooperation whatsoever, we |
| | intend to take up this issue with US authorities." Cigarette smuggling is a major |
| | organized crime activity in addition to costing European governments $1.5 billion in |
| | lost taxes in 1997. |
| | New York Times, May 8, 1998, p. A1 |
| | tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour saut |
| | A single case in the Hong Kong courts involves $1.2 billion worth of Brown and |
| | Williamson cigarettes that were smuggled into China. When asked whether she |
| | blamed foreign companies for the smuggling problem, Dr. Judith Mackay, executive |
| | director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control, responded: "It would be |
| | libelous to suggest that the foreign tobacco companies are actually smuggling their |
| | own cigarettes. But it is the case that approximately one third of all cigarettes are |
| | smuggled and unaccounted for in company ledgers..." |
| | Multinational Monitor, July-August 1997, p. 23 |
| | tobacco reference guideg (artefact pour saut |
| | Former British-American Tobacco Ltd. executive Jerry Lui Kin-Hong was sentenced |
| | in Hong Kong to three years and eight months in prison for plotting to accept $23 |
| | million in bribes and a corrupt $10 million loan from cigarette distributors. The justice |
| | in the case said that major companies were assisting international criminals, and that |
| | the highly lucrative smuggling encouraged crime and undermined efforts to persuade |
| | youngsters in Hong Kong not to smoke by providing them with cheap black market |
| | cigarettes. The justice also said that there is evidence that the companies knew that |
| | vast quantities of the cigarettes were being sold to smugglers. |
| | South China Morning Post, June 25, 1998 |
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| | Monday, July 24, 2000 | Page 15 of 18 |
| | globalink (artefact pour saut de ligne) |
Last page of this chapter Copyright (©) 2000 - David Moyer - published on UICC GLOBALink |