How BAT Fights the Illegal Tobacco Trade

Fighting the black market in tobacco addresses a threat to our business, while also helping to fight organised crime and preventing smokers from getting access to unregulated tobacco products. We invest more than £50 million each year in this fight.

Keeping our own house in order

• We support only legitimate trade in our products.
• We stop doing business with customers or suppliers who are found to be complicit in tobacco trafficking.
• We have ‘Know Your Customer’ guidelines and procedures, which require the volume of tobacco products we supply to be consistent with legitimate demand.

Working with others

• We engage with governments and international organisations, such as the World Customs Organisation and the OECD, to increase understanding and find ways to work together to address this global problem.
• We work with the European Commission and its member states, and are committed to providing funding of €134 million as part of our 20-year cooperation agreement, which includes training border staff in new security systems.
• We have agreements with governments and customs authorities in over 50 countries worldwide.

Implementing industry-wide supply chain security systems

• We have a proven, automated system for tracking and tracing products as they move through the supply chain, which we are implementing in our markets as part of our cooperation agreement with the European Commission.
• We are founding members of the Digital Coding and Tracking Association (DCTA), which promotes an agreed industry-wide approach to help governments ensure taxes and duties are paid, and help consumers and authorities validate a product’s authenticity.

Fighting alongside law enforcement agencies

• We gather and share intelligence.
• We monitor the destruction of seized products and machinery.
• We authenticate seized products and carry out forensic analysis on illegal goods.