![](https://media.icij.org/uploads/2012/05/630globaltobacco.jpg)
![](https://media.icij.org/uploads/2012/05/630globaltobacco.jpg)
An ICIJ Investigation
Tobacco Underground
The world’s most widely smuggled legal substance fuels organized crime and corruption, and robs governments of needed tax money.
![](https://media.icij.org/uploads/2012/05/630globaltobacco.jpg)
- Working with reporters in more than a dozen countries, ICIJ is charting the frontlines of the illicit traffic in cigarettes.
- Relying on interviews with insiders and thousands of internal industry documents, reporters pieced together how smuggling played a key role in big tobacco’s strategy to boost sales and increase market share.
Tobacco Underground
![Faux brand-name goods from toothpaste to tank tops proliferate at popular markets like this one in Hong Kong](https://media.icij.org/uploads/2017/10/image-2.jpeg)
Jan 27, 2010
The counterfeit cops
Tobacco Underground
![Graffiti in Derry lauds the Real Irish Republican Army, which has made millions from tobacco smuggling](https://media.icij.org/uploads/2017/10/image-4.jpeg)
Jun 29, 2009
Terrorism and tobacco
Tobacco Underground
Jun 29, 2009
The Taliban and tobacco
MONEY LAUNDERING
![](https://media.icij.org/uploads/2021/12/MossFon-GettyImages-1400w-e1719628038445.jpeg)
Jun 28, 2024
Panama Papers trial concludes with all defendants acquitted of money laundering
IMPACT
![](https://media.icij.org/uploads/2023/04/Roman-Abramovich-GettyImages-630264848.jpg)