In 2016, Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner, Wayne Buchhorn, warned that illegal tobacco smuggling is rampant, funding organised crime and posing a potential national security risk.
In 2017, the Black Economy Taskforce’s chairman, Michael Andrew, urged the federal government to clamp down on the illegal tobacco industry, with Philip Morris estimating that illegal tobacco trade is costing the federal budget almost $4 billion a year in lost excise.
Over the weekend, the Daily Telegraph reported that international students are behind much of the illegal trade in tobacco:
The Sunday Telegraph discovered dozens of online advertisements on Chinese language website, Sydney Today, that offered illicit cigarettes for sale.
International students are among those pedalling the trade with some even posting photographs of their university credentials on the profile used to negotiate the sale.
Many of the sellers use instant messaging app We Chat to organise the exchange and offer home delivery for free within the Sydney area…
In one exchange, a Queensland University of Technology student agreed to send a “domestic shipment” via mail while another seller agreed to meet the buyer outside their uni library.
The Illicit Tobacco Task Force confirmed it was aware of the online activity and looked at cancelling visas of people charged with tobacco offences as a way of disrupting the market.
“I don’t think it would be acceptable on any level of understanding to have a person on a student visa undertaking a form of criminality whether it’s illicit tobacco or anything else,” ITTF acting commander Superintendent Leo Lahey said.
Ultimately, the booming black market in tobacco is a symptom of the federal government’s punitive excise taxes.
With the cost of a cigarette rising to nearly $2 a dart, a lucrative black market was always going to develop, international students or not.
As long as the official cost of cigarettes continues to skyrocket, so too will the black market trade in tobacco.
