ApiraSol has been investigating the routes, brands and entities that trade illicit cigarettes for various years.

In this particular research from 2024, ApiraSol focused on illicit cigarettes in APAC using trade data, but also open sources such as enforcement news, press releases by customs agencies, various research papers and online Intelligence reports.

The period covered for trade data is October 2022 - November 2023 and for enforcement news in general between 2022-2023.

Criminals typically take advantage of porous borders, cigarette price differences between countries within the same region, and vulnerabilities in free trade zones (FTZs), to traffic their products.

The APAC region, in particular, presents certain geographical, economic and social characteristics that provide a favorable environment for the illicit cigarette trade to thrive in.

For instance, several countries in South East Asia consist of a fragmented collection of islands and peninsulas which are difficult to police. Furthermore, the UAE and Singapore are home to some of the biggest FTZs in the world.

Besides Singapore and UAE, there are other countries with major ports that are used as transit and transhipment hubs for illegal cigarettes: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The APAC region is also home to some of the biggest smoking nations in the world, some of which have a high demand for lower price, illicit cigarettes.

All nine countries covered by the report have been identified as both points of origin and destination for illicit cigarettes. However, while some countries are primarily points of origin, others are primarily destinations.

The reports you see in our website are just extracts of a more extensive research.
In this public version, entity and brand names were hidden.
Other parts of our research are not shown in this web-version.
‍
For optimal results, we suggest viewing the content of the reports on laptops or larger screens.