They are inconspicuous, barely distinguishable – whether they are smuggled or counterfeit cigarettes.
But they are a growing problem: A total of 300 million cigarettes entered the Swiss market last year – a 50 percent increase compared to 2020. That’s equivalent to 15 million packs of cigarettes.
To consume them, 1,000 people would have to smoke a pack every day for 41 years.
And the financial damage is considerable, they write. Swiss media, the Telegraph reports.
According to them, Swiss tax authorities suffered losses of 76 million francs in tobacco taxes last year.
This was reported in a large-scale study on illicit cigarette consumption in Europe, where the consulting firm examined a total of 38 European markets.
But what stands out in this article by the Swiss media outlet, Blick.ch, is that the majority of cigarettes illegally imported into Switzerland come from Kosovo (80 million), Serbia (20 million) and Portugal (10 million).
Meanwhile, more than half of the smuggled goods could not be clearly identified geographically.
While legal cigarette sales fell from 9 billion to 7.5 billion between 2020 and 2024, consumption of illegal cigarettes increased by 50 percent during the same period.
Swiss media point out that while the market share of illegal cigarettes is 3.5 percent of total consumption in Switzerland – relatively low, there is an increasing trend.
On the other hand, across Europe, a total of 2024 billion illegal cigarettes were consumed in 52.2 – corresponding to a ten percent share of the total market.
France is particularly affected: over two billion more illegal cigarettes were consumed there in 2024 than in the previous year.
The United Kingdom also ranks significantly above the European average, with a percentage of 26 percent.
According to KPMG, authorities in the 38 markets surveyed lost a total of €19.4 billion in tax revenue. /Telegraph/