The Romanian authorities captured, in the first semester of 2024, more than 40 million contraband cigarettes, of which more than 75% were registered in the southern part of the country, tobacco producer BAT Romania announced on Monday.

The value on the „black market” of the cigarettes seized in the first months of the year amounts to over 40 million RON, according to the data centralized on the platform www.stopcontrabanda.ro, the only real-time centralizer of the seizures of contraband cigarettes in Romania, says the source.

At the same time, the black market of cigarettes increased in May to 10.4% of total consumption, compared to 9.8% at the end of March, according to the latest study by research company Novel. This is the highest level of smuggling since January 2020, which reveals the intense dynamics of this phenomenon in speculating the conditions of geopolitical instability and, implicitly, the continuous need to intensify efforts to combat smuggling. A low level of illicit cigarette traffic also implicitly means higher revenues for the state budget, BAT shows.

„For the first time in the last three years, the level of cigarette smuggling exceeded the threshold of 10% of the total market, and this is a serious alarm signal regarding the need to intensify efforts to monitor illicit traffic at the country’s borders,” declared Ileana Dumitru, director of Foreign Affairs of the Southeast Europe Area, BAT, quoted in the press release.

Romania has 2,000 km of border with non-EU countries, where the price of tobacco can be up to three times lower, and each container of illegal cigarettes means a million euros in profit for smuggling networks.

AGERPRES