From: El Daily Post
Some 340 million packs of contraband cigarettes are sold across Mexico each year. In the first nine months of 2014 alone, authorities in Mexico City seized more than 46 million cigarettes, an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Most are coming in by way of Belize. What’s fueling this growing and deadly illicit trade of a legal commodity? Organized crime and corruption.
In the dense jungle along Mexico’s southern border with Belize, an illegal industry is thriving that rivals the narcotics trade in terms of revenue generated for enterprising smugglers. The steamy 150-mile boundary, which runs parallel to the Hondo River, is the least talked about of the country’s three international borders, yet it sees millions of dollars’ worth of contraband goods exchange hands every year.
Notably, the tiny Caribbean nation is a major hub for an illicit commodity that garners surprisingly little attention and yet affects the lives of millions of Mexicans: the regional trade in contraband cigarettes.
“The border with Belize is incredibly porous,” says Álvaro Pérez Vega, commissioner of Operation Sanitation, a crackdown on illicit tobacco smuggling launched by the Federal Commission for the Prevention of Health Risks (Cofepris). “And tobacco is one of the main commodities for smugglers. It’s an extremely well-organized industry, particularly at the wholesale level.”
