Cigarette smuggling: the "blondes"

Once Upon a Time cigarette smuggling: the "blondes" came from the markets of Eastern Europe, were then packed in Montenegro before arriving aboard a speedboat, the Adriatic coast. Once in Italy, they were selling like hotcakes every evading excise duty. Since the global economy has forced a change in perspective, however, it is adequate to smuggling. An example? Last year in Italy were seized over 42 tons of cigarettes from China and other Asian countries, in practice a package of four, including those intercepted at our ports, comes from the east and not from the traditional hubs Balkans.
The most alarming, however, is different: in the vast majority of cases it is not splints "parades" to the big tobacco companies, but copies. After toys, T-shirts and electronics, this is the last frontier of fake made in China, with which the Financial Police and Customs Agency should do more often accounts. The damage is primarily health: the products coming from the Far East, in fact, do not respond to any fee or quality health care, even if no consumer will be able to say he was not warned, warnings rite on the harmfulness of smoking, as well as vignettes of Monopoly, regularly appearing on each package. Perfect imitations, as is traditional Chinese.
So the perverse effect of the crisis, as pointed out in Panorama.it an investigator of the Financial Police, is also expressed in another direction: "Now it is not uncommon to find that even traditional retailers are turning pro rata to the traffickers to obtain a little 'marginality more, "confides our source. The consequences are too heavy for the State Monopoly, which last year, including purchases at duty-free steps to loose tobacco (taxed at a lesser extent) or to the electronic cigarette, and in fact counterfeit, showed lower tax revenues to nearly 650 million euro, practically half of the red recorded by the tobacco at a European level, with the weight of the non-traditional channels in a decade that has passed from 0.7 to 4.3 per cent.
"Difficult to that in a context like this, the situation will improve," admits the investigator, explaining why the phenomenon has regained vitality in recent months: "The increase in prices, especially in Northern Europe, and eastern borders increasingly malleable reported Italy at the center of the Exchequer. It is a country of transit is by definition also a country stop, where sells a lot. Especially given the fact that we are about to take a new increase in excise duties, and therefore prices, already scheduled for January 1st and then returned in May. "
Even routes and distribution methods are changing: "Today" said the expert, "the bulk of the slats smuggled goods traveling together with legal, sometimes with passenger ships. The smugglers, on the contrary, they have become a marginal phenomenon. Thus, in addition to the Adriatic ports, we have to carefully monitor also other airports: Genoa, Naples, Gioia Tauro. " On the phenomenon has also lit a beacon Olaf, the European Anti-Fraud. Last summer, after the intended contrast 1.5 billion extraordinary contributions, the Agency has recommended to the most exposed countries (Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland and Great Britain) to tighten sanctions and controls, forcing them for the first time publication of annual reports.