Europe is being flooded by smuggled Russian-made cigarettes worth at least $1 billion a year, an international investigation has discovered. * * * The new underground smoking trade involves only one brand, Jin Ling, which is turning up in more cities and countries across Europe every month. Jin Ling, virtually unknown to the authorities three years ago, has grown so rapidly that law enforcement officials say it now rivals Marlboro as the top smuggled brand being seized in the European Union. * * * It is only sold illegally — smuggled by gangs who hope to pocket immense profits by selling unlicensed, untaxed cigarettes on black markets across Europe. * * * The scale and striking growth of Jin Ling smuggling has marked it as a major new development in organized crime, prompting European customs agencies to respond by launching “Operation Baltic” early in 2008. * * * German customs and police investigators believe that Jin Ling is being distributed and sold through organized crime networks, including Vietnamese and Lithuanian gangs, and policed by local enforcers.
