A third of cigarettes smoked are contraband – investigators

Intelligence collated by a team of former detectives working undercover in the Border region has found evidence of a booming illegal tobacco trade, capable of turning over possibly tens of thousands of euro each year. The Celt, in the company of an undercover team, witnessed a number of such transactions in broad daylight in Clones last week.
Comprising of former senior gardaí and UK police officers, the team has been set up by tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris International.
They have helped unmask widescale selling in plain view, proving that, from Cavan to Fermanagh, Monaghan and Louth, the industry for selling and buying illegal and counterfeit cigarettes is a thriving one.
Heading the team of investigators is Will O’Reilly, a former Scotland Yard detective and chief inspector with the London Metropolitan Police Force and former Detective Chief Superintendent and member of Special Branch with An Garda Siochána, Kevin O’Donohoe.
They started working in Ireland last February and, by the end of the year, will have carried out surveillance and test-purchases in 14 towns across Ireland. The foundation for this work is an 'empty pack survey’, which examined discarded cigarette packs from streets and bins in centres across Ireland last year. It found up 32% of empty packs were illegal.

Clones operation
The team last week focused their attentions on neighbouring County Monaghan, where The Anglo-Celt joined them.
In the town of Clones, the Celt accompanies an undercover officer about to carry out a purchase having set up their mark the previous afternoon.
In broad daylight, we buy three packets of well-known branded tobacco - all with excise tags torn off - from a man dealing just yards from Clones town’s centre square. The speed with which they acquire illegal tobacco within hours of visiting the area is shocking and they say, with certainty, if given more time, they could have easily unearthed even more suppliers.
“It was a case of, when I asked, everybody seemed to know where to send me to go buy cheap tobacco,” explained the investigator, who cannot be named for fear of disclosing their identity.
Approaching the mark, it was clear the middle-aged man, dressed in heavy rain-jacket, had just conducted a sale to another person. As with the previous buyer, the man standing in an alley next to a bookmakers had no qualms when openly dealing more tobacco, three 50g pouches, to our undercover buyer for €37.50. They are all well-known brands - Drum, Golden Virginia and Amber Leaf - the retail price of which is double that paid, €75.
The mark even indicates to the buyer he will be able “get more”, but only after the person who supplies him travels out of the country over the Christmas period.
One of the buyers explains:
“A lot of smuggled tobacco comes from Belgium. It’s very easy for someone to just hop on a ferry, take a van across and fill it up. You buy it there for about €7, while over here it’s about €24 in the shops. So there is a massive mark-up and, if you think the customer’s getting it cheap, at the end of the day they’re still doubling their money.”

'Tip of the iceberg’
The Anglo-Celt is also present nearby when the team carry out another undercover purchase in Clones. Again, the price for this Flandria tobacco, an exclusively Belgian brand, is much reduced on the average cost of tobacco in Irish shops.
In the short time they spend operating locally, the undercover team manage to source both illicit and contraband cigarettes, as well as smuggled tobacco. Any intelligence they gather is handed over to the Gardaí and the Revenue but they say: “We’re only looking at the tip of the iceberg.”
For the most part at least, the team says indigenous Irish shopkeepers, unlike their counterparts in Britain and North of the Border, do not sell illegal cigarettes.
While the team purchase contraband and smuggled tobacco with regularity, their greatest worry is the rise in sales of so-called 'Illicit Whites’. Though, admittedly there are harmful chemicals in branded cigarettes, counterfeit 'Illicit Whites’, often mocked-up to look legitimate, have been tested and are known to contain all manner of unpleasant and highly-toxic elements. Among them, arsenic, rat poison, human and rat faeces, dog hair and more.
A smoker all his life, Mr Donohoe, who also sevred as a member of the Garda Special Branch, openly admits he’d be fearful of smoking some of the stuff he and his team have lifted off the streets.

Criminality
He says that the profits of the illegal tobacco trade are being used readily to fund other elements of criminality.
“A lot of the cigarettes we encounter, they’re manufactured purely for smuggling and made in the Far East, UAE and Eastern Europe. This is importation on a large scale. We’re talking about huge amounts being shipped in containers worth millions, where the distribution flow is very similar to the drug trade.
“The people who end up supplying these cigarettes we’ve found will sell them to anybody, including children. They’re already breaking the law, so where does it stop? If there were no illicit cigarettes, could a child afford a pack being sold in a shop for €11? No, but €4 is certainly manageable and the problem continues,” he said.