Cigarettes smuggling to Finland rises drastically in H1

Finnish Customs has seized more than 34 million cigarettes while smuggling to Finland in the first six months of this year, said Customs in a press release on Thursday.

The quantity of cigarettes seized in January-June period is two times higher compared to the quantity seized during the entire previous year.

The activities resembling organised crime have already caused a tax loss of more than 13.5 million euros for the state.

Illegal imports of hundreds of thousands or millions of cigarettes a time have become more common, and the cigarettes are stored here in storage facilities acquired especially for that purpose, usually in southern Finland.

From the storage facilities, the cigarettes are distributed from wholesale dealers to smaller operators around Finland.

“Key factors in identifying this phenomenon and preventing customs offences are knowledge of logistics, cooperation with the private sector as well as international cooperation between authorities. In this way, we can intervene in crime that is linked to cross-border traffic and that makes use of legal transport flows,” said Petri Lounatmaa, Director of the Customs Crime Investigation Department.

“Cigarettes are imported in significant quantities in consignments intended for commercial distribution. Smuggling of cigarettes already resembles organised crime. Different tasks are carried out by different persons, the activities cross state borders and legal business activities are deliberately used as a cover,” said Senior Customs Officer Tero Virtanen, Head of Crime Investigation South.

Finnish Customs is conducting a preliminary investigation of a case where 15 persons are suspected of smuggling as much as 10 million cigarettes and other tobacco products to Finland in 2025 and 2026.

The main suspects of the case had an established contact person network in Estonia, with whom cigarette imports to Finland were arranged.

Most cigarettes are smuggled into Finland through the Baltic countries.

“Ferry traffic from Estonia to ports in Southern Finland is the main import route. In many cases, cigarette smuggling and distribution organisations are controlled by foreign operators, mainly nationals of the Baltic countries. In addition to the cigarettes seized and detained in Finland, several large consignments of cigarettes intended for the Finnish market have also been seized in Estonia,” Virtanen said.

The illegal import of cigarettes is concealed within normal commercial traffic, making use of legitimate logistics chains and corporate structures in intra-EU traffic. This was also the method used in another case currently under criminal investigation by Finnish Customs, in which four million cigarettes were seized in June 2026. The cigarettes had been concealed among legitimate cargo.

“According to information obtained by Finnish Customs, a significant proportion of the cigarettes have been manufactured in illegal cigarette factories in either the Baltic countries or Poland. The proceeds of crime generated from the cigarettes, or at least part of them, are often transferred abroad,” Virtanen added.