Tea leaves and production waste: experts of Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise told how counterfeiters fill cigarettes

In order to save money, counterfeiters stuff cigarettes with spoiled tobacco, production waste, and even tea. Biological expertise helps to identify such products from a variety of clever dealers.

What components of cigarettes and smoking mixtures are examined, how difficult it is to identify counterfeits and why the creation of a Unified Database of Tobacco Products Samples will speed up this process - experts from Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise told about this in an exclusive commentary to UNN.

Details

According to experts, the first question that is resolved during the research is whether the product is actually a tobacco product. To do this, experts examine the contents of the product and determine the type of tobacco, as the types of blends differ in cigarettes, cigars, etc. They analyze the quality of raw materials, the amount of nicotine and resins in the products, and the compliance of the indicators with the norms of DSTU and other regulatory acts.

"All possible physical parameters of the products are determined, including the density of filling cigarettes with tobacco mixture, humidity, etc. The basis of the tobacco blend is processed tobacco leaf. In addition, the mixture contains many chemicals, up to 100 components in total - various sauces, flavors, stabilizers and other substances," the experts explain.

They add that manufacturers of counterfeits, of course, do not care about their quality and fill tobacco products with anything, even tea leaves.

"In large companies, the number of tobacco blend components in official production facilities is usually stable. In counterfeiting, no one cares about this; they pack what they have in stock. Of course, such issues affect the quality and health of consumers. Let's imagine a situation where tobacco is stored improperly for a long time at illegal production facilities, and of course, pests start to grow in it. In addition, waste from the production gets into the mixture used to fill cigarettes. There have been cases where the facts of mixing tea leaves into tobacco have been revealed. In other words, this is the maximum reduction in price and savings on everything possible. If we talk about the trends of recent years, the turnover of illegally produced tobacco products is, unfortunately, increasing. The quality of counterfeits is consistently low. When detecting underground illegal production facilities, law enforcement agencies seize finished products, components and equipment. All this is examined by experts. Even if a counterfeit is obvious, evidence is needed for a court decision," says KFI.

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Increasingly, experts have begun to investigate the so-called e-cigarettes, heating devices, and e-liquids. The latter have been delineated into a separate group of goods - pure chemistry, exclusively liquids with synthesized nicotine or its substitutes.

KFI adds that over the past 5-10 years, due to technical upgrades, the quality of expertise has increased significantly. Previously, experts studied only the botanical component, i.e. whether or not the cigarette contained tobacco, and measured all the dimensions of the product. Now, it is possible to disassemble a cigarette almost to the molecules, and all this is done as quickly and automatically as possible.

Experts believe that the creation of a unified database of samples of tobacco products from official manufacturers can speed up and simplify the detection of counterfeits.

"When we have reference samples, it will be much easier to detect counterfeits. In addition, the accounting of machines and production lines should take into account the characteristics that are important for the implementation of expert work. That is, even when registering a machine, we need to know its "footprint" - like the uniqueness of a person's fingerprints. Taking all the appropriate steps will at least double the speed of the examination process, which is the main evidence in courts," concludes the experts of KFI.

Optional

Experts from the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise have previously reported that since the beginning of the full-scale military invasion of Russia, the number of studies of tobacco products has increased significantly, and counterfeiting of excise stamps, unfortunately, is very subtle and skillful.

"We're not talking about everyday things like printing excise stamps and cigarette boxes on inkjet printers and copiers, but full-fledged offset machines and printing scale. The criminals even use paper with security fibers, which is a very specific thing. Ensuring this level of counterfeiting is obviously very costly, but despite this, cases are becoming more frequent," the experts noted.

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