Antonopoulos; Duyne

The criminal smoke of tobacco policy making; Cigarette smuggling in Europe

While the authorities were worrying about the ‘globalisation of organised crime’, mainly concerning drugs and human trafficking, a new crime-market developed: the illegal cigarette trade. As had happened so often in the history of law enforcement, it was fully created by the authorities themselves by interfering in basic capitalist relationships of customers reacting to prices and traders to profits. To discourage consumers’ tobacco consumption, the taxes were heavily increased, creating the illegal profit margin for those who succeeded to dodge this ‘price-wedge’. It took some time before the EU-authorities discovered that a new market for organising criminals has come into being, all of their own making. The illegal cigarette market is extensive, cross-border, serving more customers than the whole drug market, and still has attracted the attention of only a handful expert researchers who explored this criminal phenomenon in the last decade. In order to make their innovating research reports, spread over various other books and professional journals, better available, this special edition of the Cross-border Crime Colloquium brings their publications together. They provide insight into the working of this crime-market: the traffickers, the ways they organise, the customers, the law enforcement reactions and all this together the shaping of a new crime-market, which is still unfolding dynamically.