Of every three cigarettes consumed in Brazil, one is smuggled.
In addition to not paying taxes, illegal cigarettes put smokers' health at risk.

From Morena TV

In the world without tobacco, the concern in Ponta Porã, a Brazilian city that is next to Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay, is with the large consumption of contraband cigarettes.

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Through the streets of Pedro Juan Caballero, cigarettes are sold on the streets without any supervision. The problem is that a good part ends up crossing the border and consumed on the Brazilian side.

It is so easy to cross the border that this year more than four million reais have been seized in cigarettes brought from the neighboring country. A number three times higher in relation to the volume seized in 2010. In the federal revenue yard, there is no space for so much cigarette.

According to the Brazilian Association to Combat Counterfeiting (ABCF), about fifty cigarette factories operate in Paraguay. Much of the production is sent to Brazil clandestinely.

According to the Brazilian Institute of Competition Ethics (Etco), thirty percent of cigarettes consumed in Brazil are smuggled from Paraguay. A problem that ends up reflecting, also, in public finances. The Brazilian government fails to collect R $ 1,4 billion per year in taxes.

Health at risk

The problems generated by illegal competition go beyond the tax issue. Cigarette smoking has also become a public health problem in Ponta Porã. At the Psychosocial Support Center (Caps) in the city, more than seven hundred dependents undergo treatment to quit their addiction.

Cigarette consumption - which is no longer recommended by doctors - can cause even greater damage to health if the product is of unknown origin and manufactured without supervision. This is revealed by a study carried out by the Brazilian Association to Combat Counterfeiting that detected the presence of several foreign elements in samples of contraband cigarettes.

Grass, iron filings, grains of sand, pieces of string, insect wings, hair strands, green or moldy smoke, nicotine and tar contents above those permitted and even prohibited insecticides were found.