IMAGE Security Solutions Against Illicit Tobacco Products

In recent years, illegal tobacco trade and smuggled goods have flooded the market. They have caused many problems for consumers and governments, and have fueled organized crime.

Some studies have shown that more than 450 billion cigarettes are illegally sold in the global tobacco market each year – whether smuggled, counterfeit, or otherwise sold without paying taxes.

image resource: Newcastle City Council

Suzhou Image Technology is an experienced supplier of optical anti-counterfeiting products, providing tailor-made security solutions for cigarette brands. It aims to protect government tax revenue and prevent counterfeit tobacco products from entering the market.

The Harm of Illicit Tobacco Products:

1, Illicit tobacco products are a detriment to health.

It is known to all that cigarettes are harmful to people’s health, illegal cigarettes are even more harmful. These fake tobacco products contain highly toxic dopants, which don’t just affect your lungs but further affect your entire body.

2, Affect government tax revenue

The critical component of government revenue tax comes from the field of alcohol and the tobacco industry. However, some illegal tobacco traders make the most of various profitable methods to evade tax revenue from governments, like bootlegging, counterfeiting, illegal selling, etc. It causes huge financial losses to government revenue.

How to Protect Cigarette Brands?

Image Technology offers a full range of optical holograms to protect cigarette brands and products, including cigarette tax stamps, pack tear tape, registered hot stamping foil, optical shrink film, tobacco blank, frame paper, and inner liner.

Those products are designed with all kinds of overt, covert, and forensic features to combat counterfeiting and ensure government revenue from sales of cigarettes.

5 little tips to help you recognize illegal tobacco?

These signs indicate that maybe it’s an illegal tobacco product.

1) It may be an illegal product if there is no optical tax stamp on it, all of the legal cigarette products are marked as paid tax by affixing a tax stamp label.

2) It’s available at a very low price, for example, the price of illegal cigarettes can cost as little as £3.50 – £5/per pack (about 20 pcs)

3) Many brand cigarettes choose tear tape to decorate tobacco packs and prevent counterfeiting. You can check whether there is this tape wrapped in the shrink film of cigarette packs.

4) Pay attention to unusual or foreign brand names, suggest you buy well-known brand cigarettes.

5) Watch out for these cigarette packages with foreign language health warnings or packages with no picture health warnings.