A historic seizure of contraband tobacco was announced this Friday March 29 by customs. In total, 27 tons were intercepted during a vast operation called “Colbert II” carried out in several cities across France. According to customs officials, these large-scale seizures are becoming more and more frequent.
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LE WE 20H
27 tonnes of tobacco, 33 million cigarettes, 1.7 million packets. These are the figures from the historic seizure announced this Friday March 29 by customs and carried out as part of the national operation “Colbert II” to fight against trafficking which mobilized 11,000 officials and gave rise to 30,000 checks. On the A9 motorway, in a truck coming from Spain, no less than 10 million contraband cigarettes were seized this week.
If cigarette trafficking is growing in France, it is firstly because the price of packets in tobacco shops is increasing, namely 12.50 euros today on average, compared to 5 euros in the street.
“Lead, animal excrement”
On the sidewalk, in grocery stores, on the Internet, traffickers have diversified. This is what customs investigators specializing in the fight against contraband and counterfeit tobacco observe. “We don’t know how they are made, where they are made, in laboratory analyzes it appears that tobacco contains lead, animal excrement,” one of them explains anonymously in the report at the top of this article.
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As a benchmark, in eight years, seizures have doubled in France, reaching 520 tonnes in 2022. In Lyon, in 2022, the highest catch was 19 tonnes. According to customs officials, these large-scale seizures of several pallets at the same time are becoming more and more frequent.
But another phenomenon is now worrying the authorities: factories mass producing cigarettes on French soil. The police have already dismantled five of them.
The editorial staff of TF1 | Report: Baptiste Guénais, Séverine Agi, Antoine Bourdarias
2024-03-30 04:18:54
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