Britain main source for Mafia ciggies

MORE than a third of cigarettes smuggled into Italy by the Mafia are made by Imperial Tobacco in Britain, Italian authorities have disclosed - just days before the company faces a grilling over illegal trade in its products.

Anti-Mafia officials in Rome say the UK is also the biggest market for the cigarettes. Last year, 290 tonnes of illegal cigarettes worth more than £80m in evaded duty were seized in Italy.

According to Italian authorities, the cigarettes are sold legally by tobacco companies to middlemen in the Balkans. The same cigarettes are later landed on beaches in southern Italy from powerful speedboats coming from Albania. Then they are distributed around the EU, largely to Britain.

The revelation that Britain is the market of choice for Mafia smugglers comes just three days before Imperial Tobacco chief executive Gareth Davies faces the Commons Public Accounts Committee to explain why his company's products are Britain's favourite smuggled cigarettes.

A spokesman for Imperial said the company had recently ended the contracts of ten sales organisations in East Europe as part of a drive to stamp out smuggling. He added: 'We know that cigarettes are smuggled into Italy, but we are pleased that the number of seizures seems to be going up.'