ΕΡΕΥΝΑ : Οι απίστευτα παράνομες μέθοδοι για την παγκόσμια εξάπλωση του πανίσχυρου κινεζικού οργανισμού καπνού και τσιγάρων China National Tobacco Corporation

 

Greetings from Sarajevo,  Do you know the biggest tobacco company in the world? It’s not Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, or the other corporations often collectively referred to as “Big Tobacco.” It’s the China National Tobacco Corporation, also known as China Tobacco, a Chinese state-owned conglomerate that produces nearly half of the world’s cigarettes.  Most of them have been consumed domestically — until recently. This week, OCCRP and 12 media partners uncovered smuggling networks that have flooded illegal markets with China Tobacco brands, allowing the company to build customer bases worldwide while dodging taxes. Here’s what we found about the biggest tobacco company you’ve never heard of. More news from the world of crime and corruption can be found at the bottom of this newsletter 👇

🇨🇳 WHAT IS CHINA TOBACCO?

💁 OCCRP Explains —  Since China Tobacco joined the country’s “Belt and Road Initiative” in 2015, its brands have proliferated in countries where there is no legal market for them.

Experts say China Tobacco is simply taking a page out of the Big Tobacco playbook: allow your cigarettes to illegally flood countries, then lobby to legalize them. Read this FAQ to learn more about China Tobacco. Now it's time for our investigations revealing how this global strategy — which involves lots of smuggling — has played out on the ground 👇

🇨🇳 CHINA TOBACCO: LATIN AMERICA

🇵🇦  Illegal Chinese Cigarettes Flow Through Panama — Billions of illegal Chinese cigarettes have flooded Latin America, including many countries where there is no legal market for them. We reveal that a significant portion of this contraband comes from a network of Panama-based companies connected to China Tobacco.

🌐 The Big Picture: Panama’s lax regulations have made the country a bug light for financial criminals around the world — a phenomenon that we show extends to cigarette smugglers, including some who received shipments from companies with ties to China Tobacco. Considering that hundreds of millions of China Tobacco cigarettes have been seized by authorities in Latin America in the past year, there are likely far more companies smuggling the company’s products in the region than those exposed in this investigation. 📖 More Reading: China Tobacco and a U.S.-owned firm partnered to create a Brazilian tobacco company that has doubled its profits in the past year. But despite being the largest tobacco company in the world, China Tobacco has so far avoided the scrutiny faced by its American partner, including litigation from labor rights defenders. Read the full story.

Join the fight against corruption.

SUPPORT OCCRP

🇨🇳 CHINA TOBACCO: EUROPE

🇷🇴 The ‘Ingenious’ European Smuggling Scheme 🇱🇾 — We reveal the first public evidence tying an official at China Tobacco with organized crime in Europe. The smuggling scheme at the center of this investigation involved sending 17 tons of bricks, mattresses, and cardboard to Libya. Here’s how it worked:

🇺🇦 Smuggling in Ukraine Linked to Ex-Border Official’s Company — China Tobacco has exported hundreds of millions of cigarettes to Ukraine, even though none of its brands are legally sold there. One of its top customers was a company under investigation for smuggling tobacco. It’s now co-owned by Vadym Sliusariev, a former border official with close ties to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Read the full story. 🌐 The Big Picture: A factory in Romania produces most of China Tobacco’s brands for the European market, which include packs with names like Regina and Marble.  Our two European investigations tie this factory’s output to organized crime groups, conflict zones in the Middle East, and Ukrainian companies under investigation for large-scale smuggling.  Why hasn’t this EU-based factory faced more scrutiny?