The operations follow each other and resemble each other. A week rarely goes by without an article in the regional press noting a new action against cigarette trafficking. In Finistère, in Brest, Monday, November 14, customs seized 550 cartridges on board a vehicle. On the night of October 22 to 23, between Ariège and Haute-Garonne, the Frouzins customs brigade intercepted 972 cartons of cigarettes (i.e. 9,720 packets). In mid-October, in Eure, the gendarmes got their hands on 7,200 cartons of counterfeit cigarettes and 135 kilos of rolling tobacco – as well as 250 grams of cocaine and more than 13 kilos of cannabis resin -, dismantling an international network evolving between the department and Belgium. At the beginning of the month, the research brigade of Palaiseau, in Essonne, seized 1,500 cartons of counterfeit cigarettes, as well as 212 kilos of cannabis resin and more than 300,000 euros. This increase in customs activity can be explained in particular by smuggled cigarettes from increasingly diverse sources. Estimated between 14 and 17% of consumption by a parliamentary report, at 35% according to a KPMG file financed by the tobacco companies, the evolution of the phenomenon remains however very difficult to quantify.
On the customs side, the figures undeniably show an increase. Between 2020 and 2022, 1,046 tonnes of tobacco were seized, which represents around fifty daily cases recorded in France. At the end of August, 464 tons of cigarettes had been intercepted, when there had been only 402 in 2021. A paradoxical increase, while tobacco consumption has been in free fall in our country since the beginning of the century. Legal cigarette sales fell by 57% between 2000 and 2020.
Social media and street vending
This decrease is largely attributable to the increase in tobacco taxation, the last increases of which – having taken place between 2017 and 2019 – have reduced consumption to 24% in 2019. This does not prevent French smoking from be high compared to that of other countries of the European Union, even though the level of sales is relatively low. How can these low sales be explained when tobacco consumption remains relatively high? The explanation is partly to be found on the side of the illicit market: according to the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Trends, in 2018, a fifth of consumers (22%) had their cigarettes supplied other than by tobacconists.
This phenomenon has increased in recent years. Confinement has pushed some smokers to turn to parallel means, such as social networks first, such as Snapchat or Facebook groups, or street vending. This “curbside sale”, which has become very visible in the media in recent months in several cities, remains “limited to a few districts in urban centers”, explains an OFDT report, or at the exit of certain metros. Part of this consumption is linked to an economic argument: the rise in the price of a pack of cigarettes – more than 10 euros – leads some less well-off smokers to turn to counterfeiting – a price hovering around 3.5 to 5 euros the packet. “We must also not forget, to a lesser extent, the opportunity effects: consumers who buy packages from street vendors because it is more convenient or faster,” explains Mathieu Zagrodzki, a researcher specializing in Homeland Security and author of a study – funded by tobacco company Philip Morris – on the illicit cigarette trade for the Foundation for Policy Innovation.
“A fairly profitable criminal activity”
Cigarette traffickers are moreover less penalized by the law than traffickers of other substances. “The illegal sale of cigarettes is a fairly profitable criminal activity, because the criminal risks to which traffickers are exposed are relatively low compared to those incurred for the sale of narcotics”, explains sociologist David Weinberger, specialist in illicit supply drugs and researcher associated with Iris. When the penalty for drug trafficking can go up to twenty years of criminal imprisonment and a fine of 7.5 million euros, that caused by cigarette trafficking is less, although it has been raised. It can go up to ten years in prison, when fraudsters are punishable by fines ranging from 2,000 to 500,000 euros.
Little punished in comparison to that of narcotics, cigarette trafficking is a long-standing network of organized crime, contributing as much to the enrichment of the “French Connection” as of the Italian mafias. Today, the illicit market is divided into three main categories. First, “counterfeit cigarettes, aimed at illegally imitating brands sold in France, continues the researcher. Then, “cheap whites”, or “llicit whites”, which are cigarettes from trademarks registered in certain countries but which are not in the rest of Europe. Finally, those of contraband, that is to say authentic cigarettes which are bought in a country where the taxation is lower, which then cross the border by exceeding the limit legal.”
Better organized networks
More diverse, the current networks are also better organized than those of yesterday. “Traditionally, many contraband cigarettes came from the Maghreb and were distributed illegally to be resold on French territory, specifies Mathieu Zagrodzki. Since 2019, counterfeiting has partly moved to Europe with factories in Poland, Ukraine, Armenia or the former Yugoslavia. More and more manufacturing points are also established in Belgium and the Netherlands.” The factories are closer to France, when they are not directly established on the territory. In mid-September, the village of Poincy, in Seine-et-Marne, was the scene of a customs operation dismantling a clandestine cigarette manufacturing factory. A large warehouse of 400 square meters housed 28 machines dedicated to the establishment of illegal production.
A part of French consumption must therefore be linked to a parallel market, the estimate of which remains particularly nebulous. As noted in a parliamentary report written by deputies Eric Woerth and Zivka Park, the various studies “lead to estimate that its magnitude is between 15 and 30% of sales of the total volume of sales”. At the same time, the firm KPMG has been carrying out an estimate for ten years financed by tobacco manufacturers, including the sector giant Philip Morris. According to the latter, in 2021, more than a third (35%) of cigarettes consumed in France were acquired outside the legal circuit. However, the methodology of these studies is regularly called into question, in particular by consumer associations. “We must also take into account the fact that customs seizures do not necessarily concern only the French market. Some of the cigarettes seized are also simply in transit”, nuance François Topart, in charge of advocacy with the National Committee against Smoking.
3 billion shortfall for the state
A public health issue, smuggled cigarettes also represent financial damage for the State estimated at between 2.5 and 3 billion euros per year, including 500 million euros in uncollected VAT. The executive therefore displays its desire to fight against this parallel market. During the annual congress of the Confederation of tobacconists, which was held on October 20 and 21 in Paris, the Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal explained that he was “determined to fight tirelessly against tobacco trafficking”. According to a plan that should be presented with more details at the beginning of December, the customs services will be equipped with “9 new next-generation mobile scanners”, bringing their number to “20 by the end of 2025”.
“Two industrial scanners” to “improve the controls of postal parcels and express freight” will be added to the device. “Anti-tobacco trafficking groups in large cities”, similar to the one already set up in Lyon, “will attack criminal organizations and carry out punch operations”. Finally, the “cyber-customs unit will be decentralized and extended to local investigation services”. The objective: to better track illicit sales on social networks, so that nothing slips through the cracks.