3 well-known tobacco companies deprived of their licenses in Ukraine (photos)
20 November 15:51
Since the beginning of the year, the Bureau of Economic Security has opened 309 criminal proceedings for illegal tobacco trafficking. In addition, 3 well-known tobacco companies were deprived of their licenses based on the BES materials. This was reported by Komersant ukrainskyi
with reference to the website of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine.
As a result of the searches, the BES officers seized 16 cigarette production lines, including those belonging to licensed companies that produced cigarettes with counterfeit excise tax stamps.
The seized goods included 7.8 million packs of cigarettes, 300 thousand kilograms of tobacco and were worth about UAH 1 billion.
As a result of the measures taken, revenue in the tobacco industry, according to Kantar Ukraine, increased by UAH 3.029 billion since the beginning of the year, and the share of the shadow tobacco market decreased from 25.7% to 14.6% in July 2024.
To prevent illegal activities, the State Tax Service and video surveillance were installed at tobacco manufacturing facilities on October 1. These measures are intended to prevent official manufacturers from manufacturing and selling cigarettes outside the tax authorities’ records.
