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Ivo Nikodimov research by BNT
The ship’s route fully corresponds to the risk profile of illegal traffic. It starts in Brazil, the largest tobacco producer in the world, and travels to North Africa. That is why it attracts the attention of Italian special services.
They followed him from Sao Luis, arrived in Tunisia, but did not dock at the port. He is awaiting a three-day raid, confirming the suspicions of “Guardia Finance” investigators that the announced destination near the port of Djerba is only for cover. The movement of the ship completely follows the smuggling traffic. Go through the Bosphorus, past the ports of Bourgas and Varna, and anchor in Constanta. Romanian services are already taking over from there. At the same time, another Indonesian ship docked in Constanta.
According to the documents, he drives clothes. But the undercover agents among the stevedores found that both ships were unloading tobacco, which was leaving for our country in two trucks. Upon their return from Bulgaria, the Romanian police stopped the trucks, which were already full of Moldovan cigarettes and allegedly manufactured there. Then they send the data from the secretly installed GPS trackers to the Bulgarian services.
“In fact, they more or less indicate exactly where to look,” said Tihomir Bezlov, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy.
Thus, the CDCOC reached the illegal tobacco cutting workshop near Kostievo and the factory in Tsalapitsa. No one suspects that the old dairy has been turned into a modern high-capacity cigarette production line. But the factory is also soundproof, has a separate generator power supply, filters that clean dust and odors from production. Behind the high fence are rooms for sleeping, food and entertainment for the workers, who can take months to get out. That’s why nobody sees them. Otherwise they would attract attention. Because all the workers are from Moldova.
“It is not clear whether this factory did not work in Romania and moved to Bulgaria. Or it was in Bulgaria and moved several times,” said Tihomir Bezlov, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy.
In contrast to the precise coordination between the Italian, Romanian and Bulgarian services, the other illegal cigarette factory in the town of Zhelyazno was discovered by accident. It does not matter that it is 30 km from Calapitsa and the two police actions separate them for 4 days. The police inspector in the Zhelyazno area noticed suspicious traffic near a former agricultural base and decided to check what was happening. He walks in and comes across a cigarette production line.
And the Zhelezno factory appears to be a significant investment. Modern, new and clean. Ready to start production. With raw materials delivered, but waiting for the workers. Their beds are next to the assembly line. The ready-made boxes are from an established world brand, but from a mix that has not been sold in Bulgaria for the last ten years, but is in demand in the Middle East, Western Europe and the former Soviet republics.
2 years ago a similar factory was opened in Karnobat. Again foreign workers and imported tobacco. So why does the production come to us?
“We have a lot of experienced people. They have gained experience in both the legal and illegal sectors for about 30 years,” said Tihomir Bezlov, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy.
It turns out that our technologists are able to perfectly mix low-quality tobacco with another, to obtain cigarettes with good taste. The breeders are the small leaf tobaccos, also called oriental, since they are cultivated in our country. However, there is no direct connection to Bulgarian tobacco. Rather, experts assume that the required quantities come illegally from Albania and Macedonia.
“Tobacco, which is for Greek factories, is also believed to arrive through Greek channels,” said Tihomir Bezlov, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy.
Illegal tobacco imports are more difficult to capture because they are disguised behind legal ones. The official import of cigarette factories to Central Europe also passes through Constanta. Monitoring of imports from Brazil is rather the exception. The main weakness of illegal schemes is the tracking of technologists and workers.
“The example of the Karnobat factory was that they were Moldovan and Ukrainian workers who, in a joint operation of the Ukrainian and Moldovan services, managed to detect them and were moving to Bulgaria,” said Tihomir Bezlov, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy.
Furthermore, illegal production encounters periodic difficulties with each seizure of cigarette paper shipments, filters, boxes and labels. This and the monitoring of technologists is the reason factories migrate so frequently from one country to another.
“There were more than 10 cases where factories were found on the territory of the whole EU on the basis of signals from Bulgarian services. At that time, the approximate damage was about BGN 700 million,” said Ivan Geshev, prosecutor boss.
Ten years ago, Europe stopped subsidizing tobacco production, and that finally paid off. From 42 thousand in 2009, there are now 3,200 tobacco producers in our country. Production has been drastically reduced, but many professionals in this industry have lost their jobs. It is natural that some feed the gray sector.
Europe’s efforts to curb consumption also paradoxically stimulate illegal production. Increasing the excise tax on tobacco products has made this business more profitable than drug trafficking.
“The higher the excise duties and the prices, the higher the profit, because a box of cigarettes is known to cost 40-50-60 stotinki as a cost of production. At BGN 6, let’s say a price, you make a huge profit.” said Tihomir Bezlov, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy.
In Bulgaria, excise duties on tobacco products are the lowest and this explains why smuggling bypasses us and takes us abroad.
“Bulgaria has the lowest levels of smuggling in the EU, we are talking about 3%. In the context of more than 20% in Western Europe,” said Tsvetan Filev, president of the National Association of Tobacco Producers – 2010.
In addition to being close to us, smugglers use fully imported tobacco, despite the good quality here and the unfavorable market.
“Bulgaria is unique in the EU context in that we grow two varieties of small leaf tobacco: Basmi and Kabakulak and two varieties of large leaf: Burley and Virginia,” said Tsvetan Filev, president of the National Association of Tobacco Producers of 2010.
“At that time, its value was like the value of gold and it brought huge revenue to the state and played a very important role in the Bulgarian tax system. It brought revenue such as the military industry,” said Professor Hristo Bozukov, Institute of Tobacco and Tobacco Products.
And national transitional aid for farmers who want to stop growing tobacco is the least incentive to cut production. The most decisive factor is the restriction of cigarette production.
“Volumes have been steadily decreasing and large companies want large fixed batches to be able to maintain the blends they produce. Even recently, Greek traders have told me that they are interested in our group of Basmi varieties, rather than the Krumovgrad variety , but unfortunately they cannot receive such large batches, “said Professor Hristo Bozukov, from the Institute of Tobacco and Tobacco Products.
Now we have two legal factories that are small buyers and a contract with a large multinational company. Outside of this market, our tobacco growers cannot compete with cheap smuggled imports. Unlike Greece, which has attracted a large producer and therefore offers a high purchase price to its producers.
“Both tobacco is bought at a higher price and the money it subsidizes is more,” said Mustafa Hussein, a tobacco producer.
“There are cases like this, it is known how Greek merchants come. They buy at our prices, at the prices offered by companies here. – 7-8 BGN? – Yes. And they are already sold there at the price in euros, in Greece, in the local merchants, “said Prof. Hristo Bozukov, Institute of Tobacco and Tobacco Products.
“Tobacco in the area is a struggle for survival. Due to the difficulty of working with tobacco, we tested many crops. So I planted tomatoes, they don’t grow,” said Mustafa Hussein.
“Years ago we tested walnuts the same way again. We planted many fields with walnuts according to some schedule. The walnuts dried up again,” said Kezim Mehmed, a tobacco grower.
They also tried to extract honey. This is the other gold in this area, because the bees collect valuable mana nectar from the forests.
Kezim Mehmed, tobacco producer: Our honey is of very high quality, but it is once a year. In the interior they take 4 crops, we one, and sometimes we can’t.
Mustafa Hussein: Every family, be it a builder or an expat, at least one of the family members is out of town. You can’t trust tobacco, because once a year you get your money.
39,000 growers who have quit for another two years will receive millions under the transition program. Another problem is that the program is not linked to other agricultural products.
“I think that if these millions, which are distributed to people who have finished tobacco production, are redirected to current tobacco producers, things will change dramatically. Perhaps there are people willing to revive tobacco production in Bulgaria.” said Prof. Hristo Bozukov, Institute of Tobacco and Tobacco Products.
“In the end, the state annually collects the excise tax on tobacco products and taxes on them,” said Tsvetan Filev, president of the National Association of Tobacco Producers – 2010.
This is a volume of approximately 9% of all taxes.
Revenues in the treasury from excise duties, again paradoxically, move many European countries such as Greece and Italy to produce cigarettes, respectively to develop and produce tobacco. And in the end, they should reduce consumption. But obviously they are the CAUSE of unhealthy and very low quality tobacco smuggling. Therefore, more fronts must be opened in this war. Halftones are quite harmful.
Bulgaria
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