Aug
29
By David Eade
PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR: Is tobacco smuggled across the border from Gibraltar to La Lnea? Of course the answer is yes whether we like it or not.
Stand at the border any day and you will see Spanish men and women crossing from Spain, buying cigarettes, concealing them on their bodies, then walking or cycling back across the frontier. As I have said in the past, I know about it, you know about it, and hence the Guardia Civil know about it. If they were intent on stamping out on the practice they would simply body search those they know to be carrying the booty. No need at all to stop and search every car and cause traffic queues eight hours long. That has nothing to do with the war against tobacco trafficking. However as I will show in this article the packet of cigarettes that is bought in a kiosk here may well end up in Rajoy’s backyard in Galicia.
The fact is cigarette prices are far cheaper in Gibraltar than Spain and hence there is an unhealthy cross border trade. The buying of the cigarettes here for personal consumption is legal: it’s only when the purchasers cross in to Spain exceeding the allowed limit that it becomes illegal. Of course the purchase has to be, as I said, for personal consumption. Many of our Royal Gibraltar Police and Customs officers bear the scars received in battles with the traffickers when they have caught them in the act on this side of the frontier attempting to take commercial quantities illegally in to Spain. The Government has also cracked down on the anti-social behaviour these smugglers cause on our housing estates.
Of course the small time smuggler takes his or her packs across the border and for many of them the money received is all they have to put food on their tables or pay their rent such is the economic crisis in the border town. However there is every indication that those who are purchasing the cigarettes are not local bars or shops but organised criminal gangs. According to Spanish experts this trade is now in the hands of the traditional Galician smugglers, which as I said at the start puts the culprits in Rajoy’s own backyard because it is from Galicia that he hails.
Tobacco experts believe that 12 per cent of all such products consumed in Spain are contraband. The motive for this is simple: in tough economic times the price of a packet has increased on average by two euros in three years. Waiting to fill the need of smokers have been the Galician smugglers.
Hermelino Alonso is one of the senior officials in the Aduana in Galicia whose job it is to fight the mafias and criminal networks engaged in this activity. He says there has been a resurgence in the old “contrabandistas de tobaco Gallegos”. Many of them are now out of work, have no legal employment and hence to earn an income have started again smuggling tobacco.
However says Alonso the location of their work has changed completely. They now operate in autonomous groups whose members are only known to each other. Whilst Galicia is the centre of the operation their tobacco contraband comes from Andorra, the Canary Islands and Gibraltar via La Lnea. Indeed today the Galicians are the leaders in the import of “American tobacco”.
Jos Antonio Vzquez Tan, is a judge at the court in Santiago de Compostela, Rajoy’s hometown. He says it is very difficult to break in to the Galicia tobacco smuggling gangs because the activity is carried out amongst the old families who all know each other face to face. He said these gangs that have historically smuggled tobacco have kept their contacts, know the circuits and have carried out this trade for many years.
The judge also pointed to the fact that a large amount of contraband is now transported by container. Indeed that is so and leaving Gibraltar and Andorra aside the majority of the illicit tobacco that comes in to Spain does so via the container ports and not in dribs and drabs as in La Lnea. These containers arrive in Spain largely from China, elsewhere in Asia, the Middle East and sometimes via Africa.
The tobacco is hidden in the containers and the manifest is always for other legal goods. I have written about this illicit trade before and it always amuses me that Spanish officials talk openly about the risks to smokers’ health because there is no guarantee that this illicit tobacco is safe. Since when has smoking been safe?
None the less I find it very ironic that the cigarettes that start off here probably end up in Rajoy’s backyard. Perhaps the Brcenas judge needs to investigate whether any monies from the Galician smuggling families has made its way in to the PP’s illicit coffers. It wouldn’t surprise me if it has.
29-08-13
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.