The number of illegal cigarettes seized in the Netherlands to date this year has already reached the volume confiscated in all of 2023, reports DutchNews.
Customs and finance ministry investigators seized 120 million illegal cigarettes since the start of 2024. The biggest haul so far this year was made in Rotterdam, where officials found 27 million cigarettes, which would have generated €6 million in tax had they been legal.
In July, customs officials confiscated 8 million illegal cigarettes in Someren. That same month, they seized 6 million cigarettes and 4.5 tons of rolling tobacco in Rotterdam.
Critics attribute the increase in seizures to rising prices. In April, the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes rose to around €11 in the Netherlands, encouraging more smokers to source their tobacco abroad.
In a 2023 empty pack survey, a quarter of cigarettes had avoided Dutch tobacco duties, up from 15 percent in 2021.
While nearly 19 percent of the cigarettes had been bought abroad, 4 percent were either fake branded cigarettes or had been smuggled. Two years previously, just 1 percent were either fake or illegal.
Research by the public health institute RIVM indicates that smokers buy around 10 percent of their tobacco abroad.