Most often, counterfeit tobacco products have fake excise stamps or Duty Free markings. Over the past six months, law enforcement officers have seized one million packs of cigarettes as part of the work of the Cabinet of Ministers. Interagency Working Group have seized almost 14.4 million packs of cigarettes. This is reported by the Bureau of Economic Security, UNN writes.
The BES emphasized that the budget did not receive more than UAH 706 million in taxes from these cigarettes. In total, analysts estimate that since the beginning of 2024, the BES has prevented UAH 339.4 million of excise tax from going to the budget.
Law enforcement officers added that cigarettes seized as part of criminal investigations are sent for examination to the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise.
E-cigarettes are also sent there. The nicotine in such cigarettes is salt-based and slightly different from that found in the tobacco plant. Most of these tobacco products have counterfeit excise tax stamps of Ukraine or Duty Free markings. At the same time, according to experts, their main difference is quality. After all, counterfeit cigarettes are made without adherence to standards and control, from low-quality raw materials and with violations of technological processes
It was also noted that according to the project "Monitoring the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products in Ukraine" conducted by Kantar Ukraine, in early 2024, the level of illegal trade in tobacco products for the first time decreased to 19.1% against 25.7% at the end of 2023.
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Experts from the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise have previously said that since the beginning of the full-scale military Russian invasion, the number of studies of tobacco products has increased significantly, and counterfeiting of excise stampsis unfortunately being done very subtly and skillfully.
We're not talking about everyday things like printing excise stamps and cigarette boxes on inkjet printers and copiers, but full-fledged offset machines and printing scale. The criminals even use paper with security fibers, which is a very specific thing. Ensuring this level of counterfeiting is obviously very costly, but despite this, cases are becoming more frequent