Page 106 - SMUGGLING IN INDIA REPORT FOR 2020-2021

60 2020-2021 SMUGGLING IN INDIA REPORT
Cigarettes and Tobacco Products
According to a news report in April 2021, even as Covid protocols restricted international and domestic transport, the cross-border crime syndicates continued to make big money by smuggling truckloads of ‘sin goods’ into India through land and sea routes. Two major transit hubs, Tamu (Myanmar) and Dubai have emerged as bases for the smuggling syndicates, involved in pushing large consignments of branded cigarettes, seen as the most lucrative commodity having profit margins much higher than gold. Cigarettes have thus become one of the most lucrative commodities for smugglers, of late.
According to the Tobacco Institute of India, India’s situation is unique, with only nine percent of total tobacco consumption in the form of legal cigarettes. The remaining 91 percent is in the form of illegal cigarettes and 29 other tax-inefficient tobacco products such as bidis, chewing tobacco and snuff, among others.
This is unlike the rest of the world, where tobacco consumption is synonymous with cigarettes, which accounts for as much as 90 percent of total consumption
Stringent regulations, coupled with extremely high tax rates on cigarettes, incentivize illegal cross-border trade.
A report by the Tobacco Institute of India (TII), published in January 2021, suggests that pandemic-related disruptions further exacerbated the stress on the legal cigarette industry,
and bolstered the cigarette trade.
Trend Analysis:
illegal
With the pandemic affecting cargo movements and air travel, new trends appear to have emerged in cigarette smuggling. Seizures affected by the DRI witnessed diverse modus operandi, including use of cover cargo for smuggling of cigarettes, in containerized