New research from the University of Bath suggests that British American Tobacco (BAT) may have been complicit in cigarette smuggling, despite the company’s public claims to combat the trade.
The findings, from two papers published by the University’s Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG), part of the Centre for 21st Century Public Health, in BMJ’s Tobacco Control journal, are based on systematic searching of approximately 15,000 leaked internal BAT documents provided by a whistleblower in 2013, and analysis of a relevant sub-set of these. The 164 documents cited in the paper, which mainly concern East and Central Africa between 2000–2014, are now publicly available from the University of California, San Francisco’s online archive.
BAT launched its “Anti-Illicit Trade” programme in 2004, officially to tackle cigarette smuggling. However, the leaked documents indicate that the programme instead concealed evidence that BAT’s own products were entering illicit markets. Through operations, often involving informants and covert tracking, the programme was used to monitor and disrupt competitors, with BAT employing external companies to distance the company from direct involvement in such activities. Meanwhile, documents suggest BAT continued to use trade strategies for which they previously faced legal action, including through distributors well-known for their smuggling activities.
Lead author Benoît Gomis, a consultant with the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG), said: “BAT’s anti-smuggling programme was never about stopping smuggling - it was about boosting profits and influence. Governments must cut ties with the tobacco industry, strengthen protections against interference, and investigate BAT’s role in illicit trade and anti-illicit trade practices.”
Dr Allen Gallagher, co-author and Research Fellow and Co-Director of the Tobacco Control Research Group, said: “BAT’s anti-smuggling programme was not focused on eliminating illicit trade. Instead, it covered up evidence of the company’s product appearing illicitly in markets, only tackled illicit trade when the company felt it would financially benefit from doing so, and sought to bolster the company’s influence over governments.”
Call for action
Building on their findings, the researchers encourage relevant governments to end all partnerships with BAT and other tobacco companies and to consider launching independent investigations into BAT’s conduct.
They also stress the need for greater transparency across tobacco product supply chains and tightening of safeguards against industry interference in policymaking and research, including fully-independent mechanisms such as exhaustive, real-time track and trace systems, more frequent inspections of shipments, and consistent independent data collection, reporting, and research.
The findings demonstrate the need to continue and monitor tobacco industry strategies and practices, including via the use of internal, rather than just public-facing, industry documents.
The paper British American Tobacco's continued involvement in illicit tobacco trade is published in the BMJ journal Tobacco Control. DOI: 10.1136/tc-2024-058843
The paper “To increase the available profit pool” and “get a seat at the table”: using internal documents to understand British American Tobacco’s anti-illicit tobacco programme is published in the BMJ Journal Tobacco Control. DOI: 10.1136/tc-2024-058844