Crime gangs flogging flavoured smokes

Organised crime gangs have seized on a looming federal government ban and started flooding the black market with flavoured smokes.

Crime gangs are starting to flood the black market with flavoured cigarettes and large pack sizes as the federal government moves to ban the legal equivalents.

A Herald Sun investigation has found “crushball” cigarettes under the counter of 43 shops across Australia, including three in Victoria.

Crushball cigarettes contain a small liquid ball in the filter, which when you squash it, releases a flavour – usually menthol – into the smoke.

While crushball cigarettes are currently legal, the federal government has announced they will be outlawed from April next year, along with any other regular flavoured cigarette.

Flavoured cigarettes are being sold under the counter.

Serious organised crime gangs have seized on the ban and have begun trafficking huge quantities of crushball cigarettes, which are now starting to appear on shelves nationwide.

The federal government will also make any cigarette pack size greater than 20 illegal.

Up until the tobacco reforms were announced, illicit packs were always in packs of 20s.

But for the first time a NSW shop has been found selling Korean brand Esse in packs of 40.

Larger packs are popular with people who smoke a lot and want to save a few dollars by buying in bulk. Illicit tobacco has never been seen in bigger packs because it is so much cheaper than the highly taxed legal product.

A display of illicit tobacco in a Melbourne shop.

But crime gangs recognise that those currently buying packs of 40 may want to continue doing so.

“The black market is responding exactly how a black market does by expanding its offerings to consumers of these soon to be banned products,” an industry expert said.

“It’s yet another example of policy being made in isolation with no regard for the unintended consequences.”

They added: “When these specific tobacco markets erupt, as it will and is already starting to, the Department of Health will pass the buck and claim it’s a job for the Australian Border Force or the overworked and underfunded state enforcement agencies. They will be tasked with having to clean up the mess of the department and the minister.

A shop selling Korean brand Esse in packs of 40.

“The Health Minister’s bold statement of world’s best practice tobacco policy comes with escalating serious criminal activity causing community harm, a dramatic reduction in excise collection and all the while the goal of improving public health is not realised as smoking rates stagnate and kids have access to tobacco products from an increasingly illegal market.”

Last month, Acting Deputy Commissioner Nicole Spencer said Australia’s border “is under constant stress” from the “myriad of shifting threats and risks”.

“If total cargo volumes are to grow as predicted, by 70 per cent and traveller numbers by 50 per cent over the next decade, we will clearly need to do some things differently to deal with new or evolving threats,” she told the Australian Airports Association Conference.

“In the last 12-months a number of imports, including vape and vaping products, were declared prohibited items, while the importation of illicit tobacco, particularly at our ports, is occurring at record levels.”

Originally published as Crime gangs flogging flavoured smokes