Illicit tobacco threat moves to the internet

Responsible convenience store retailers are increasingly losing out to a new and rapidly growing threat as illicit tobacco sales move from the streets to cyber space.

Imperial Tobacco said there had been “a huge increase in the advertising and sales of illegal tobacco on the internet”, while up to 98% of all big tobacco brands bought via the internet are now thought to be illicit, according to the Scottish Anti Illicit Trade Group.

The problem is expected to mount in the lead up to Christmas when smoking rates tend to rise and small stores react to the display ban.

According to former Scotland Yard detective chief inspector and illicit trade expert Will O’Reilly, who now carries out investigations for Philip Morris Ltd (PML), PML alone has identified more than 40 Facebook pages where its brands are being sold illicitly.

And the problem is not limited to UK brands. The internet is also “awash” with cheap whites - legitimate foreign brands which are smuggled into the UK where they have no legal market.

Many of these ‘cheap white’ cigarettes such as ‘Fest’ are being sold on Eastern European forum-style websites.

“In most cases money doesn’t change hands on the sites. Instead, sellers include their phone numbers and buyers call to arrange a meeting place for the sale,” O’Reilly explained.

“The problem with these websites is that the servers are in Eastern Europe, which makes it difficult for the UK authorities to do anything about.

“However, even when servers are in this country, Trading Standards don’t have the time to monitor the whole internet and HMRC has bigger fish to fry. In the meantime, legitimate retailers are losing out,” O’Reilly added.

SGF public affairs manager John Lee told C-Store it was concerned that Trading Standards might not have the resources to “take effective action against the proliferation of online illicit trade”.