Tobacco Underground
Center for Public Integrity

In this award-winning investigation, reporters in 14 countries go inside the booming contraband tobacco trade. From Chinese counterfeiters to renegade factories in Russia, Pakistan and on US Indian reservations, the cigarette black market robs governments of an annual $50 billion in taxes and fuels terrorism and organized crime. The articles were first published on the Center for Public Integrity Website between October 19, 2008, and June 28, 2009.

PART ONE: THE NEW SMUGGLERS
Europe

• Made To Be Smuggled: Russian Contraband Cigarettes ‘Flooding’ EU
• Going Undercover: Inside Baltic Tobacco’s Smuggling Empire
• Ukraine’s ‘Lost’ Cigarettes Flood Europe: Big Tobacco’s Overproduction Fuels $2 Billion Black Market

China

• China’s Marlboro Country: A Massive Underground Industry Makes China the World Leader in Counterfeit Cigarettes
• Smoking Dragon, Royal Charm: A Tale of Four FBI Agents, 62 Chinese Smugglers, and a Billion Bogus Cigarettes

South America

• Smuggling Made Easy: Landlocked Paraguay Emerges as a Top Producer of Contraband Tobacco
• When Cracking Down Seems Impossible: Paraguay’s Corruption Fuels a Criminal Economy

North America

• Canada’s Boom in Smuggled Cigarettes: Indian Tobacco Factories, Organized Crime Control a Billion-Dollar Black Market
• Big Tobacco’s New York Black Market: How America’s Top Cigarette Firms Fueled a Billion-Dollar Underground Trade
• ‘The Guy in the Wheelchair’: How an El Paso Smuggler Moved a Half Billion Cigarettes Across America
• SMOKE2U: Tobacco Sales Take Off in Cyberspace

Terrorists and Insurgents

• Terrorism and Tobacco: Extremists, Insurgents Turn to Cigarette Smuggling
• The Taliban and Tobacco: Smuggled Cigarettes Give Boost To Pakistani Militants

PART TWO : BIG TOBACCO’S LEGACY

• The Montenegro Connection: Love, Tobacco, and the Mafia
• Djukanovic’s Montenegro a Family Business: As EU Membership Looms, So Do Troubling Questions
• Blame the Distributor: How Gallaher Stayed in the Smuggling Game
• How To Get Away With Smuggling: Canada’s Billion-Dollar Deal for Big Tobacco
• Tobacco Companies Linked to Criminal Organizations in Lucrative Cigarette Smuggling

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