Roundtable Discussion on Illegal Tobacco Trading in St. Petersburg

A roundtable discussion was held in St. Petersburg regarding "the illegal trafficking of tobacco products and its impact on the economy of Russia and the Northwestern Federal District." During the discussions, the deputy director of the scientific center "National Strike on Illegal Trafficking of Industrial Products," Byssolte-Khamzatov stated that the illegal trade share of tobacco products in Russia remained unchanged at 12.1% in the first half of 2022. However, the situation varied in different regions.

Customs inspection image source: Collage 78.ru

In the Northwest Federal District, it has been reported that nearly four million counterfeit cigarette packets were seized between January and June 2022, representing a five-fold increase from the same period in 2021. St. Petersburg alone accounted for one million of those packets and saw a similar five-fold increase in comparison to the previous year.

According to Deputy Director Vladimir Zaslavsky of the Legalization of Turnover Marking System Department of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, in the first half of 2022, Leningrad Region confiscated 1.8 million packs of cigarettes from illegal trafficking, 200 times more than in the first half of 2021 when 9,000 packs were seized. Additionally, there were only 17 illegal points of sale discovered in the North-West Federal District, a decrease of 47 times compared to the same period in 2021.

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