New Delhi, December 27
Beware: your foreign cigarette puff may be lighting up terrorism, proving it to be injurious to the country’s health too.
Yes, the profits from genuine as well as cheap fake smuggled cigarettes of popular foreign brands are now under suspicion of funding terrorism in India.
Such cigarettes are coming into this country from Bangladesh, Myanmar, Korea and China. Popular brands like 555, Marlboro and Benson and Hedges are easily available at panwalla shops in every city.
A warning has been sounded by the American security agencies stating that the profits from cigarette smuggling in the USA are funding terrorist entities abroad such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaida.
Although prepared for a different purpose, India’s top business body - Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India (ASSOCHAM) - in a report ‘Combating counterfeiting - brand protection’, released earlier this year, gives a definitive estimate of the huge funds generated through smuggled tobacco.
“Increasingly, large volumes of such (smuggled) cigarettes coming from across the borders will gradually kill the domestic industry and consequently, severely affect the livelihood of the five million tobacco farmers, mainly in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka,” the ASSOCHAM report points out.
The report says that contraband cigarettes are estimated to be worth around Rs 1,700 crore. The total revenue loss to the exchequer will be around Rs 2,000 crore.
After the November 26-29 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Indian spying and counter-terrorism agencies have started looking at various channels from where terror money is flowing into the terrorism market. The smuggling of foreign cigarettes’ has come on their radar.
They are trying to calculate how much money generated through this smuggling network is finding its way to terrorism activities in India.
All over the world, the terrorist organisations are always on the look out to generate funds in the area of their operations because of expanding cadre and operations as their financiers are not always be in a position to bank-roll them.
The terrorist organisations levy a kind of ‘protection premium’ on all smuggling and underground activities in the border areas as none escapes their knowledge and scrutiny.
“We suspect that a good part of the huge illegal money generated by the smuggling of cigarettes is going into the coffers of terrorism
groups,” says an officer of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. Although narcotics continue to top the charts for mobilising money for terror activities, foreign cigarettes, of late, have also become a vehicle in this dirty game, says a BSF officer at Indo-Bangladesh border.
In April, a new American report from the Republican staff of the House Homeland Security Committee, said federal and state governments, especially New York’s, must do more to combat cigarette smuggling because its profits fund terrorist entities abroad.
“Recent law enforcement investigations have directly linked those involved in illicit tobacco trade to infamous terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaida,” states the report, pointing out that Arab-Americans have a corner on the cigarette smuggling market in New York. “Through the global terrorism channels, we are sure, a good percentage of black money from cigarette smuggling is definitely being pumped into India too,” says an Intelligence Bureau officer. The ASSOCHAM study attributed high taxes on domestic cigarettes as the main reason for increased demand for smuggled cigarettes.
The Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) terrorist organisation is said to be providing protection to smuggling of various goods, including foreign brand’s fake and real cigarette cartons, into India. HuJI-B is an umbrella organisation for smaller groups of fundamentalists. It is said to be operating in league with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
Sushil Silvano, who runs a non-government organisation - ‘Tobacco Kills’ - was recently in Lucknow, and travelling in a cycle-rickshaw. The rickshaw-puller pulled out a king-sized packet of 555 cigarettes and drew out one with his teeth.
“I declined as he offered one light to me. I asked him how he could afford to smoke such an expensive cigarette. With a broad grin he told me: ‘Jenab, yeh Bangladeshi cigarette hai, bahut cheap aur bahut strong.’ (This is a Bangladeshi cigarette, very cheap and strong).” Silvano, later at Indo-Nepal border, found the Bangladeshi cigarettes and raw tobacco sachets, without any markings, being sold brazenly.
Due to heavy demand and huge profit arising out of evading the import duty, smuggling of cigarettes is a lucrative business. Even the panwallah and cigarette shops have found foreign brands more profitable as the commission is higher. Most of the smuggled cigarettes arrive by sea route to port cities like Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai.
