Nearly Third of Cigarette Packets Found in British Litter Bins are Smuggled Goods

A new survey carried out by a Swiss brand protection company found that nearly a third of the cigarette packets found in litter bins in Britain were smuggled into the country, with a number of them containing fake cigarettes made up of human excrement or dead flies. The survey was carried out in Birmingham by MS Intelligence who analyzed more than 13,000 packets found in litter bins between April 3 to May 11 and found that around 30.9 percent of cigarette packets were either fakes or were purchased abroad.

The survey, codenamed Operation EDPC, also included reports that the items intercepted by the UK Border Agency contained asbestos, mold and human excrement while another haul of counterfeit cigarettes in Derbyshire was found to be made up of crushed flies.

Stating that the number of counterfeit cigarettes have risen in recent years, the report said, “Historically, it (the illicit market) was made up of genuine brands of tobacco smuggled from lower-priced EU countries. Along with counterfeits, illicit whites represent the most significant threat to legitimate trade and tobacco revenues in the UK from large-scale organized criminality.”


Source-Medindia