France will unveil a plan to deal with the “explosion” of tobacco trafficking
Faced with the “explosion” of illicit tobacco trafficking, the French government is expected to unveil a plan on Monday to curb the phenomenon.
Tobacco smuggling “is beginning to take on the aspects of drug trafficking”, according to the head of the customs intelligence department, Florian Colas. (illustrative image)
AFP
The Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal is due to unveil on Monday a new three-year plan (2023-2025) intended to strengthen the fight against illicit tobacco trafficking, a phenomenon by his own admission in full “explosion” in France.
According to statistics published by customs, more than 284 tons of contraband tobacco were seized in 2020, 402 tons in 2021 and already more than 600 tons, including more than two thirds of cigarettes, in the first ten months of 2022.
The authorities’ plan “aims to adapt the customs response to the unprecedented scale taken by the parallel tobacco market”, explains Gabriel Attal in a document obtained on Saturday by AFP. Among other key measures, it provides for the deployment of a dozen vans equipped with X-ray scanners capable of sifting through a vehicle in sixty seconds, for an amount of 45 million euros, details this document.
“Strengthening of sanctions”
This plan also announces the formation, on a model tested in Lyon, of anti-tobacco trafficking groups “capable of carrying out punch operations and investigations” in the nine main identified smuggling areas of the country.
A “cybertabac” network will also be set up to track traffic on the Internet or social networks, and an effort made to develop “scientific customs” tools which make it possible to trace the origin of contraband tobacco, in order to better determine traffic routes.
Gabriel Attal finally indicates the opening of a reflection, with his colleague Keeper of the Seals Éric Dupond-Moretti, with a view to “strengthening the criminal sanctions” against buyers, sellers and manufacturers of contraband tobacco. “I set a clear objective for customs, to stop the parallel market’s headlong rush by 2025”, concludes the minister.
Fabrication clandestine
A sign of the vitality of the traffic, customs discovered in December 2021 and last September in the same town of Poincy (Seine-et-Marne) two “factories” for the clandestine manufacture of cigarettes, the first to be dismantled in France. Tobacco smuggling “is beginning to take on the aspects of drug trafficking”, Florian Colas, head of the customs intelligence department (DNRED), told AFP.
“Criminal organizations are using any means to move the product,” he added, citing “road, express and postal freight, social media orders, heavily laden container flows, ‘ tobacco ‘mules’ that saturate thefts and clandestine factories”.
The Minister of Public Accounts is due to unveil the 2023-2025 plan on Monday in the Pyrénées-Orientales, one of the favorite routes for contraband tobacco bound for France.
AFP
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