Excise duty fraud

Publication date 27-02-2025, 14:40 | Last update 02-04-2025, 13:34

Excise duty is a tax on products such as alcohol, fuel and tobacco. If manufacturers and sellers of these products do not pay any excise duty, that constitutes excise duty fraud. This also disadvantages honest traders. A form of excise duty fraud is the illegal trade in tobacco products, which the FIOD combats together with Customs and the National Police.

What is excise duty fraud with cigarettes?

The price that customers pay for all cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco includes excise duty. If someone sells cigarettes for a lower price at an unusual location, most likely, excise duty fraud is involved.

Loss of income and poor working conditions

Evading excise duties and VAT is a criminal offence. The trade in illegal cigarettes disadvantages legal sellers. In addition, the Dutch  treasury misses out on millions of euros in income. The illegal production of cigarettes also undermines the anti-smoking policy of the Dutch State. The production of illegal cigarettes can also involve poor working conditions for the employees. And the quality of illegal cigarettes is not checked.

What does the FIOD do to fight cigarette fraud?

Criminals make a lot of money with the illegal production of, and the illegal trade in, tobacco products. The Combi Team SMOKE investigates and analyses money flows and the logistics chain surrounding tobacco fraud. The team is a collaboration between:

• FIOD
• Customs
• Public Prosecution Service (OM)

The FIOD collaborates within Europe as well. With institutions like:

• Europol
• The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)
• European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT)

Recognising cigarette fraud

Fraud with cigarettes can be recognised by:

• (much) too low a price;
• packaging differs from original packaging;
• different sales outlet: such as a garage or a suspicious webshop;
• Dutch excise stamp is missing on the packaging;
• health warning in Dutch is missing.