Cigarette Smuggling Finances "Terrorist" Groups - Campaigners
GENEVA (AFP)--Cigarette and tobacco smuggling is financing militant or
extremist groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and sapping about $40 billion a
year from government budgets, campaigners said Monday.
The allegations were made as 160 countries resumed talks at the World Health
Organization on expanding an international antismoking treaty to clamp down on
the illicit trade in tobacco.
Apart from issues such as enforcement and coordination, the 10-day preparatory
negotiations are also examining a possible halt to duty-free sales of cigarettes
or measures against Internet sales, WHO documents showed.
An alliance of some 350 anti-tobacco campaign groups said in a statement that
concerted action against the contraband and counterfeit cigarettes trade would
far outweigh the $40.5 billion in lost tax revenue.
Some 11.6% of the global cigarette market was illicit, equivalent to some 657
billion cigarettes a year, the International Union against Tobacco and Lung
Disease estimated in a report.
Researchers also alleged that "half a dozen terrorist" or militant groups,
including the Pakistani Taliban, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Hezbollah,
left-wing FARC rebels in Colombia and the Real IRA in Northern Ireland, rely on
black market tobacco for revenue.
"We believe that tobacco has been second only to drugs as a source of finance
to the Pakistani Taliban," said David Kaplan, editorial director of the U.S.-
based Center for Public Integrity.
His group also highlighted "smuggling hubs" in China, Paraguay and Ukraine,
where either illegally produced counterfeits or contraband excess production
from legal factories were fueling black markets around the world.
It estimated that 80% of counterfeit cigarettes in the European Union and 99%
of those sold on U.S. streets were among the estimated 400 billion made
illegally every year in China.
"Renegade factories, multinational companies and weak enforcement all play a
role in fueling this massive illegal trade, whose profits rival those of
narcotics," said Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Center.
The WHO negotiations are aimed at expanding the 2003 Framework Convention on
Tobacco Control, that strengthened measures against smoking.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
06-29-090919ET
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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