With a majority of contraband tobacco entering Canada from the U.S., Canadian border officials are ill-equipped to tackle the issue–allowing organized crime groups to take advantage of enforcement gaps.
Danny Fournier, senior manager of illicit trade prevention for Rothmans Benson and Hedges Canada, is calling for heightened security measures to combat the illicit tobacco trade and its production, which fuels organized crime groups operating in Canada.
Fournier was the Recipient of the Governor General of Canada’s Police Exemplary Service Medal with over 25 years of law enforcement experience, where he oversaw organized crime, contraband tobacco, and drug enforcement operations.
In an interview with True North at a conference on preventing illicit online trade, Fournier said organized crime counts on the contraband tobacco market to stay alive. Fournier explained that as long as criminal organizations can make easy money from trafficking illegal tobacco, public safety will suffer.
“Every time organized crime gets involved in the trafficking of any commodity, they always brought violence to our communities,” Fournier told True North. “They always have. They always will. That’s how organized crime works.”
He said the majority of contraband tobacco comes across the border from the U.S. to supply illegal manufacturers in Canada. Fournier said he thinks the federal government should increase the product vetting capabilities of the Canadian Border Services Agency and give the RCMP more of a role in tobacco enforcement.
Though busts occur where tobacco is the only contraband seized, unmarked cigarettes and tobacco products are often confiscated alongside drugs and guns, including deadly narcotics like fentanyl.
Fournier warns consumers that any tobacco product that doesn’t have a marked filter, has colourful packaging, or simply comes in a big ziplock bag is considered contraband and likely has been sourced by organized crime groups such as the Italian mafia in Montreal.
“If you’re purchasing contraband cigarettes, you’re contributing to funding organized crime and criminal activities, maybe the end consumer does not always realize that,” Fournier said. “Organized crime does not care much about what the commodity is, as long as they can enrich themselves.”
He said the continued high demand from consumers, poor enforcement, and unclear regulation create the “perfect storm” for criminals to rake in profits at the expense of legitimate sellers and the Canadian taxpayer.
Fournier and RHB are calling on the government to target manufacturing equipment such as machinery and even cigarette parts such as filters from entering the country unless it’s being distributed to legal manufacturers.
“An easy one for the federal government would be the regulation of a cigarette manufacturing material, which could be acetone, the material used to manufacture filters,” he said. “It could be cigarette paper. It could be every component entering in the manufacturing of a cigarette, that could be regulated at the federal level to be monitored at the importation level because we do not manufacture any of those in Canada.”
He said restricting the components involved in illicit tobacco operations from entering Canada would give the CBSA the “right tools” to intercept some of the products coming in and deter their transportation while not imposing an additional administrative burden on existing and legitimate manufacturers.
Fournier says law enforcement lacks the resources and sustained online presence to tackle online illicit trade. To deal with the gap in enforcement, Rothmans Benson and Hedges have begun flagging content for online sales platforms and law enforcement to tackle.
He said it’s unrealistic for law enforcement to penalize every individual selling illegal goods online so his focus is instead on stopping the sales and advertisements rather than the individuals responsible.
“We’ve developed partnerships with these online sales platforms where we have an agreement,” he said. “We flag or report posts that are either illegal, don’t follow applicable provincial laws or regulations, or their own policies and in turn, these online sales platforms remove these posts.”
On top of working with online sales platforms such as Kijiji, Craigslist, YorkBBS and Facebook Marketplace, Rothmans Benson and Hedges partners with law enforcement and Canada’s governments to combat illicit trade.
The tobacco producer discovered that 75% of contraband comes from conventional means, while 25% comes from online interactions. It’s estimated that provincial and federal governments lose $2 billion in tax revenue each year from illicit online trade, with more than half coming from Ontario.
Since it began monitoring online in November of 2022, the company has taken down over 12,000 online ads; 45% of those came from Ontario – which represents over $1 billion of evaded provincial and federal taxes.
It has taken down 7603 illicit nicotine pouch ads in Canada since January of last year.
As the company is scanning the internet, it stumbles upon other illegal posts and flags them out of good.
During its campaign monitoring its products, the company was able to remove 800 posts for illegal vaping products and 586 ads for prescription drugs, cannabis, illicit drugs and guns, including Fentanyl.