Iraqi tycoon Nizar Hanna Nasri sits atop an empire spanning pharmaceuticals, liquor imports, and some of Erbil’s most spectacular real estate developments. But his success was built on a far less visible foundation: A globe-spanning trade in black-market cigarettes. Key Findings Nizar Hanna Nasri’s facilities have fed billions of cigarettes into black markets from Cameroon...
High-level employees from British American Tobacco’s U.K. headquarters oversaw a corporate espionage ring in South Africa, buying expensive surveillance equipment that was later used to illegally spy on the company’s competitors, leaked documents show. Allegations that British American Tobacco’s (BAT) South African unit had bribed law enforcement agents to disrupt its competitors’ operations hit headlines...
A bust of 17 tons of illicit cigarettes in Italy led back to China Tobacco’s European factory — where an executive was working closely with a group of smugglers to help them move cigarettes around Europe. Reporters found the company shipping large numbers of cigarettes to suspicious buyers in Iraq, Montenegro, Moldova, and more. Key...
China Tobacco’s factory in Europe is selling hundreds of millions of cigarettes to companies in Ukraine under investigation for cigarette smuggling — one co-owned by a former border official with ties to the president. Key Findings China Tobacco has exported hundreds of millions of cigarettes to Ukraine from its European factory since 2013, even though...
What is China Tobacco? How is China Tobacco linked to the Chinese government? How is China Tobacco structured? How does China Tobacco differ from other multinational tobacco companies? How profitable is CNTC? Where in the world are China Tobacco’s cigarettes sold? What treaties regulate China Tobacco? I hear a lot about “Big Tobacco”...
It’s the biggest cigarette company you’ve never heard of. While the China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC) produces nearly half the world’s cigarettes, almost all of them have been consumed at home. Until recently. In 2015, state-owned CNTC jumped on China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, a global strategy for developing Chinese infrastructure and trade that built on the...
