Illicit tobacco: Tackling the threat to national law and order

Increasingly the illicit tobacco network is becoming a threat to national law and order as well as security. Benefitting from access to new markets with different legal and cultural conditions, organised crime has expanded its engagement in illicit trade significantly.

In a recent report on the tobacco industry the Research Intelligence Unit (RIU) said the trade is used extensively by organised crime groups to profit. Given softer penalties compared to higher profits, criminals have developed sophisticated mechanisms to smuggle goods to Sri Lanka. The RIU report says a focus group comprised of various stakeholders involved in prevention and policy making agreed that the growth in the illicit trade of tobacco is serving to increase the spread of organized crime, gangs and criminal activity. “It results in higher social cost in addition to driving the consumption of other forms of drugs.”