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Thessaloniki customs officers found 908 boxes with over 9 million cartons of illegal cigarettes, placed in containers filled with Christmas decorations from China! The boxes were seized because the Chinese did not pay an import tax but the other truth is that 30% of the cigarettes inside are highly toxic and most of them are made out of tobacco taken from butts!

Chemical analyses show that the cigarettes contain 11 times more arsenic, lead and cadmium, 133% more carbon monoxide, 160% more tar and 80% more nicotine! The whole procedure of production and distribution of these poisonous cigarettes was revealed by e research done by Professor G. Andonopoulos from the British University Teesside.

The profit of selling the counterfeit cigarettes abroad reaches 500%, and on the local market – 200%. The export is done by organized groups acting under the guise of senior officials. Even here in Greece, where the percentage of caught illegal packages has increased, out of every three shipments, one is seized and the others pass without being stopped.

Based on the research “Dragon smells like smoke” everything starts from the Southern Chinese provinces and the goal is for shipments to arrive to European ports – Athens, Thessaloniki, Napoli, from where cigarettes take the road to the homes of European, who pay a lot…

Tobacco used by the Chinese is raw, moldy, and even decayed and not too long ago local authorities in Shenyang region found labs, where tobacco is produced from gathered butts. The ones responsible have integrated themselves in recycling factories, from where they collect butts from the trash and after that use the gathered tobacco.

Chinese counterfeit cigarette factories can be found in storages, in legal factories, in farms, in military schools, in private homes and even in churches. But producer’s key to success is their incredible ability to produce cigarettes, which look the same as the real ones.

Not too long ago a Philip Morris representative, responsible for product security, said that in 2001 the Chinese have produced eight different types of counterfeit Marlboro and in 2008 the same producers have exported cigarettes to 80 countries worldwide by copying even the smallest details on the boxes, so the cigarettes look real.