EU targets cigarette smugglers and organized crime, but who’s winning?
The problem of illicit trade, tobacco smuggling and organized crime enjoys unprecedented attention at the top European level in these days, especially in Brussels, where European governments say they’re going to fight back harder than ever. Why? The illegal trade in tobacco robs EU countries of nearly 10 billion euros (.78 billion of potential profits, and the return on investment in smuggling tobacco for the criminal gangs is more than 370 percent. “This problem cost my company 120 million euros (9.728 million) across the EU last year. But it is in the interest of all European citizens that this illegal activity is tackled because it cost European shopkeepers and small businesses around 700 million euros. This is money that should be going to fund social services and is instead going to criminal gangs,” Michael Kraushaar, Head of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs for cigarette maker BAT’s western European operation told New Europe.
Twilight or smugglers’ New Moon?
Three leading Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) took the initiative to gather together some of the top officials in law enforcement and politics to discuss the problem of organized crime and put together a new game plan for fighting it. . . .
UK Liberal Democrat MEP Bill Newton Dunn, Hungarian S & D Edit Herzog and German EPP member Andreas Schwab said they helped organize the event to raise awareness and educate EU institutions and the public about the impact of illicit trade across society. Herzog emphasized that bringing up the topic of organized crime to the forums was designed to push lawmakers toward becoming more active in the battle. . . .
New attention has been paid, especially in the media, to the problem of tobacco smuggling raised after authorities in Ireland on October this year announced that they had confiscated more than 120 million contraband cigarettes, considered to be the largest single seizure ever made in the EU. Ireland, together with Germany and UK, is the main destination for contraband cigarettes, where profits from illicit sales are greatest. . . .
The possibility of creating a European version of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI,) has been brought up for the discussion. Newton Dunn said sees Europe in the same position today that US states were in 70 years ago. “With open state borders they had to develop a FBI. The EU’s member states will eventually realize that they have to do the same; the longer they drag their feet, the greater the success of the cross-border criminal gangs,” he said.
