Fife is second only to Glasgow when it comes to the fake fags trade.
A major investigation has found sales of illicit tobacco are rife across the whole of Scotland. An active black market is blighting almost every part of the country as organised crime gangs turn from other more risky pursuits.
But it is Fife where problems are most acute, with crack investigation teams finding it just behind Scotland’s largest city when it came to being able to lay their hands on counterfeit ciggies.
With Glasgow named as the easiest in the UK to find illicit tobacco, it shows the extent of the epidemic sweeping Fife. Not far behind is the central Scotland area, covering Bo’ness, Alloa, Stirling and Falkirk.
The team of trained buyers used local intelligence and information to identify the spots where illegal tobacco, often made in unhygienic conditions abroad and laced with human excrement or dead flies, was likely to be available for sale.
Led by former Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector Will O’Reilly, the teams, made up of law-enforcement trained test purchasers, spent three days in 10 areas of Scotland, including North Lanarkshire, South Ayrshire and Edinburgh, to try to find out how rife the problems are.
In Fife they focused on Dunfermline, Cowdenbeath, Buckhaven and Leven, carrying out, with ease, 17 transactions.
Meanwhile, during the undercover operation in central Scotland they completed nine transactions, buying 44 packs of cigarettes and two pouches of roll your own tobacco with the cheapest pack costing £3.50 less than half the price of a genuine pack.
The team said that illicit tobacco was “readily” available in the Falkirk West constituency of Public Health Minister Michael Matheson, who recently reaffirmed the Scottish Government’s commitment to introduce plain packaging.
The investigation was carried out by industry giants Philip Morris International as the Scottish Government commits to introducing plain packaging. Opponents claim the plans would boost the illicit trade.
A report by KPMG has shown the rise in the market in Australia to be at its highest recorded level since the introduction of plain packaging at the end of 2012.
Mr O’Reilly and his team uncovered a “booming” trade in illicit whites, non-duty paid cigarettes smuggled into Britain, with brands such as Fest and Jin Ling easily obtained across Scotland.