Treasury office re-selling illegal smuggled cigarettes

Representatives of the tobacco industry have criticized a Treasury Office in Augustow for putting on the market more than 3.4 million cigarettes confiscated from smugglers. It is unclear where the cigarettes came from, as they lack Polish excise stamps, the white band indicating the cigarettes' legal status and health warnings. "Cigarettes coming from smugglers should be burnt," said the director of the Domestic Tobacco Association (KSPT) Jerzy Skiba. "This pseudo-legalization phenomenon is pathetic," says Jan Wierzbicki, director of corporate affairs at Reemtsma Polska. "Some of these cigarettes are again placed on the domestic market, and their price is then lower than those of legal cigarettes." Among the cigarettes sold by the Treasury Office in Augustow were such brands as Marlboro, Pall Mall, Camel and Mars. It is estimated that some 14 billion cigarettes were smuggled into Poland in 2001. (Puls Biznesu, p. 6) M.T.