HEADLINES

• Northern Ireland: Tobacco gangs 'making £29m a year'
• Crackdown on fake cigarettes
• Canada: Alberta butts out of tobacco stocks in preparation for lawsuit against industry
• Canada: Posters go up in smoke

• Northern Ireland: Tobacco gangs 'making £29m a year'

  Organised criminals in Northern Ireland are making £29 million a year profit from black market tobacco, it has been claimed.

  Around 350 million cigarettes are sold annually without paying duty, almost half illegally, the company behind Gallaher's Tobacco in Ballymena said.

  In many cases no arrests are possible because no-one is apprehended with the containers of cigarettes, Japan Tobacco International told a House of Commons hearing.

  Paul Williams, head of corporate affairs at Japan Tobacco International, said smokers in Northern Ireland consume around two billion cigarettes a year and 17%, or 350 million, of them are non-duty paid, meaning a revenue loss of £85 million. Around 170 million are counterfeit or illicit. Of the remaining 50%, 10% are bought duty free and 40% are cross-border purchases in the Irish Republic. The proportion of non-duty paid cigarettes is higher in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the UK.

  Source: Yahoo!/Press Association - 19 October 2011
  Link: http://yhoo.it/rlWowK

• Crackdown on fake cigarettes

  A crackdown on counterfeit tobacco sales in under way across England.

  There are concerns that the fakes often contains foreign bodies such as rat droppings and sawdust; and that profits are being used to fund large-scale organised crime including terrorism.

  Trading Standards officers are taking to the streets to tackle this problem and are warning anyone selling counterfeit or smuggled tobacco that it is illegal and they could face heavy fines, or jail.

  Nottinghamshire: Man arrested after Nottinghamshire cigarette raid - BBC News

  A 52-year-old man has been arrested after the seizure of thousands of counterfeit cigarettes.

  Police officers and trading standards officers raided a residential property in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, after a tip-off.

  More than 20,000 cigarettes and 10kg (22lbs) of rolling tobacco were found.

  Hastings: Six held in fake cigarette raids - BBC News

  Six people have been arrested and fake and smuggled cigarettes worth thousands of pounds seized in police raids on shops in East Sussex.

  A total of 140,000 cigarettes and thousands of packets of hand rolling tobacco were seized in the raids.

  Police said the goods, which were seized from four shops and one residential address in Hastings and St Leonards, were worth about £30,000.

  Two shops were closed down for suspected breaches of fire regulations.

  It follows a BBC South East investigation (includes video) in which covert filming uncovered an illegal trade in cigarettes and tobacco taking place in four stores in Hastings.

  Source: Lancashire Telegraph - 19 October 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/rnycr4

• Canada: Alberta butts out of tobacco stocks in preparation for lawsuit against industry

  Alberta is being lauded by anti-smoking and social investment groups for being the first province to dump its investments in the tobacco industry.

  The Alberta Investment Management Corp. has sold $17.5 million in directly managed stock held by public sector pension funds and the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

  Leo de Bever, CEO of the Crown corporation, says the province is making the move as it prepares to file a lawsuit against big tobacco to recover health-care costs for smoking-related illnesses.

  Groups such as the Social Investment Organization and Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada say Alberta's move to divest itself of the tobacco shares is a first for a Canadian government.

  Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, says most provinces have tobacco industry investments, but only a few release detailed information about them.

  She says the British Columbia Investment Corp. had $346 million in tobacco industry investments as of March 31, 2010. Quebec's Caisse de Depot et Placement also has multimillion-dollar tobacco holdings.

  The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board had $218 million worth of stock in multinational tobacco companies during the same period. Efforts to have the board divest itself of those investments have not been successful.

  Callard says Alberta's tobacco holdings were more modest, but hopes other governments will follow the province's example.

  Source: Winnipeg Free Press - 20 October 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/pHJJXO

• Canada: Posters go up in smoke

  London (Ontario) convenience store owners educating the public about contraband tobacco are being asked to take down the poster for their campaign.

  Over 200 of the city’s convenience stores were recently asked by the Ontario Convenience Stores Association to put up posters inside their shops depicting the negative effects of contraband cigarettes on businesses and the community.

  Within days of the posters going up, the stores were told to take them down.

  Enforcing the Smoke Free Ontario Act, which prohibits tobacco promotions inside stores, Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) officials ordered retailers to remove the contraband educational posters.

  “They are promoting tobacco use. They are promoting a product. In essence the materials really say, ‘Don’t buy illegal tobacco, we here happen to have legal tobacco for sale’,” said Linda Stobo, program manager for tobacco control with MLHU.

  Source: London Community News - 20 October 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/qkzEP6