HMRC hails huge cut in UK tobacco fraud
HM Revenue and Customs says it has halved the size of the UK’s illicit cigarette market and cut that for illicit hand-rolling tobacco by a third. The agency has announced that, working with other enforcement bodies between April and September last year, it seized more than 600m illicit cigarettes and 137 tonnes of hand-rolling tobacco, with a combined tax value of £232m. Almost 200 people were prosecuted and 100 convicted of tobacco excise fraud during that period.
Among those arrested was an employee of the Ugandan high commission, who was sentenced to six years in prison. The official had abused diplomatic privileges by purchasing large quantities of hand-rolling tobacco from duty free and then selling it on the black market without paying tax or duty. In total he obtained 28 tonnes of tobacco, equal to 44.8m cigarettes, which represents £4.8m in lost revenue.
http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2016/03/06/hmrc-hails-huge-cut-in-uk-tobacco-fraud/
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More than 10,000 fake beauty products seized in Abu Dhabi
More than 10,000 counterfeit beauty and skincare products have been seized in an operation launched in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development said its Commercial Protection Directorate unit had seized 10,231 products in Mussaffah, Abu Dhabi. It also issued 12 fines against vehicle owners who transported products without a licence in Zayed City Centre in Abu Dhabi and the Industrial Zone in Mussaffah, news agency WAM reported.
Ahmed Tarish Al Qubaisi, CPD acting director, said that the campaigns will continue to combat commercial fraud in the emirate and put an end to unlicensed commercial activities.
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/more-than-10-000-fake-beauty-products-seized-in-abu-dhabi-623463.html
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More than 600m illicit cigarettes seized by HMRC in six months
Between April and September 2015, hundreds of millions of cigarettes and 137 tonnes of hand-rolling tobacco worth £232m in unpaid duty found. More than 600m illicit cigarettes and 137 tonnes of hand-rolling tobacco with a tax value of £232m were seized by the government in the space of six months in 2015.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said the figures showed the department was reducing the illicit trade but that it remained a “significant problem”.
An HMRC spokesman said by working with other enforcement agencies it had halved the size of the illicit market in cigarettes and that of illicit hand-rolling tobacco by a third.
RongKluea raids net another B10m in fake goods 5 Mar 2016
Authorities have seized another 10 million baht worth of counterfeit brand-name goods in raids on the notorious RongKluea border market, where they have vowed to wipe out the knock-off trade by the end of April. Police and soldiers from the Burapha Task Force, with search warrants from the provincial court, led local authorities to raid two locations near the market in Aranyaprathet district on Saturday and confiscated numerous fake products. The operation followed a similar crackdown on Thursday night at five locations.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/887064/rong-kluea-raid-nets-b10m-in-fakes
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Spa owner sentenced to 5 years for killing woman with fake botox injections
A local spa owner accused of fatally injecting a women in 2012 with fake Botox was convicted and sentenced for murder this week.
Elva Mendoza Navarro, 39, of Hidalgo was sentenced to five years in prison after she pleaded guilty Thursday to the murder of Zenyasent Cisneros.
Cisneros died from complications of the injections she received on Oct. 5, 2013, at Bella’s Face and Body Spa, 400 block of North 10th Street, which was owned by Navarro.
Fake designer goods: Woman fined $6285 for selling faux luxury labels
A DOUBLE Bay woman has been convicted of selling fake designer label luxuries ranging from handbags to underwear and pens. NSW Fair Trading says Elvira Anger told her customers her goods from Gucci, Dior, Chanel and Louis Vuitton and other top labels were genuine, and they came with appropriately expensive price tags. Fair Trading claims she has long been a queen of the faux luxury goods scam.
Details revealed on investigation into N.J. prison tobacco smuggling ring
TRENTON – The end to a large-scale tobacco smuggling operation that involved inmates, New Jersey State prison employees and outside civilians, came with a single payment, an investigator told jurors Thursday. Raphael Dolce, an investigator with the New Jersey Department of Corrections, recalled the beginnings of the investigation at the first day of a trial for Keith Harris, one of the two New Jersey State prison employees who was arrested in connection with the smuggling operation.
Harris, a trade technician at the prison, was indicted in the fall of 2014 on multiple counts of official misconduct.
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2016/03/details_revealed_on_investigation_into_nj_prison_t.html
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EU Protection to Help Curb Fake Kampot Pepper
Kampot Pepper, famed for its powerful fragrance, has become the first Cambodian product to be registered with a protected label in the E.U., according to a statement released this week, raising hopes that the production of imitation goods will slow.On February 18, the European Commission (E.C.) listed “MrechKampot/Poivre de Kampot” as a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), a qualification expected to build the pepper’s reputation and reduce sales of counterfeit products, the statement said.
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/eu-protection-to-help-curb-fake-kampot-pepper-109431/
Lear MoreState nabs 4 people for smuggling 72,000 packs of contraband tobacco products
Authorities have confiscated about 72,000 packs of contraband cigarettes worth about $300,000 in the last two weeks, and four men now face felony charges.The cigarettes were illegally transported from out of state. Field Enforcement Division officers with the Maryland Comptroller’s Office assisted state police and the Maryland Transportation Authority with the arrests.
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Ejected SARS bosses start fighting back; illicit cigarette industry tagged
The genie is now well and truly out of the SARS bottle. Even herculean efforts from the highest office in the land to restore it are unlikely to be enough. There are simply too many people affected, too many working parts in this particular plunder of the public purse. Among them restored Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s two closest lieutenants from his decade at SARS, Ivan Pillay and Peter Richer. The duo, along with a large group of colleagues, were ejected from the tax collection service soon after Gordhan was moved away from Finance in 2014. Here’s what my sources say is going down. SARS has been waging a war against illicit cigarettes, a trade worth literally tens of billions of rand to the criminal underworld. As sin taxes escalated, so has the incentive – today roughly R13 of each packet of 20 cigarettes sold should go to the State.
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