Smoke Without Fire
When the factories went quiet, the smugglers started working the night shift.
By Mike Olley — GRIT Founder & Editor
The West Midlands and the Black Market in Breath
Britain doesn’t make cigarettes anymore. We import them, and too many of them arrive illegally, smuggled, counterfeited, or stripped of tax and trace.
And the epicentre of that trade, by any serious measure, sits here in the West Midlands.
Walk down Soho Road in Handsworth, through Sparkhill, Small Heath, Lozells, or Aston, and you’ll find what the authorities now quietly call the “Illicit Smoke Belt.”
Behind ordinary shopfronts and shuttered storage units lies an underground distribution network, cheap fakes moving in vans, back rooms, and private garages.
Trading Standards have seized millions of counterfeit cigarettes from these streets, often hidden behind false walls, under floorboards, or inside crates labelled as food.
A Country Hooked on Contraband
A 2024 report by KPMG, commissioned by Philip Morris International (makers of Marlboro), found that nearly one in four cigarettes smoked in Britain is illicit.
That’s roughly 5.9 billion illegal cigarettes, costing the Treasury an estimated £3 billion in lost duty.
Even if that figure were halved, the scale would still be staggering.
And while KPMG’s client has its own motives, the data stands: Britain is now one of Europe’s biggest end markets for illegal tobacco.
The Horror Inside a Fake Cigarette
People often say, “They taste the same.” They don’t.
Lab tests on seized fakes in Birmingham revealed:
Crushed insects and faeces
Heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and arsenic
Plastic fibres, mould spores, and rat poison
Decomposing plant material and industrial waste
These aren’t cut-price smokes. They’re chemical dustbins wrapped in paper.
And those who manufacture them care nothing for anyone’s health, only for their own wealth.
Ghosts of Industry
The West Midlands used to make things that lasted: tools, engines, bicycles, cars.
Now we import poison and sell it on street corners.
Factories that once employed thousands now stand empty while warehouses on the same estates hold containers of counterfeit goods.
The skillset has changed from machining steel to dodging customs.
And when the legitimate economy dries up, the grey one always grows.
“When you hollow out industry, you don’t end the working class — you drive it underground.”
What the KPMG Report Tells Us
The report, whatever its commercial intent, exposes a national failure of enforcement.
For all the talk of “law and order,” successive governments have lost control of Britain’s borders.
If we can’t intercept billions of cigarettes, how believable is the promise to stop the boats?
The same Home Office that can’t track a shipping container claims it can police the Channel.
The same ministers who talk tough on migration can’t stop criminal networks importing fake tobacco by the ton.
“If you can’t stop a vanload of cigarettes getting up the M6, what hope have you of stopping a boat across the Channel?”
The Price of Hypocrisy
Philip Morris, once the world’s most powerful tobacco empire, now paints itself as a victim of smuggling.
Yet its own legacy of addiction helped create the demand that fuels these black markets.
In Australia, Roland Castan, a former Marlboro Man, won a court case against Philip Morris after his lung cancer diagnosis.
He died before he could collect a penny.
That’s the irony: the same corporations that built a culture of dependency now claim moral outrage when counterfeiters copy their act.
A West Midlands Reckoning
In Handsworth, Sparkhill, Aston, Small Heath, Lozells, and Sparkbrook, illegal tobacco isn’t just a crime, it’s an economy.
When wages stagnate and trust in government collapses, people turn to what’s cheap and available.
It’s hard to tell someone not to buy a £4 pack when the rent’s overdue.
But every fake pack undermines public health, cheats the NHS, and props up organised crime.
And every ministerial soundbite about “getting tough on borders” rings hollow while this trade flourishes.
The GRIT Policy Plan: Stopping the Filthy Trade
There’s a way to end this, properly.
A practical, enforceable plan that pays for itself within a year.
The GRIT policy model calls for:
More Customs Officers, more Police, and more Trading Standards in the field.
A West Midlands Illicit Smoke Unit linking HMRC, Police, and local councils.
Real retail penalties: one strike, licence gone, stock seized.
Border scanners, sniffer dogs, and fast-track takedowns of online sellers.
Full enforcement funding recovered through higher tax take, reduced NHS strain, and healthier communities.
GRIT POLICY COSTING & ENFORCEMENT MODEL - Free to any Political Party Who Wants to Save Lives and Public Money…
Illicit Tobacco Enforcement & Border Competence Plan
Prepared by Mike Olley, GRIT Founder & Editor
October 2025
1. Scale of the Problem
HMRC estimates the illegal tobacco market at 10.5% of total sales, worth about £0.8 billion in lost tax.
KPMG (for Philip Morris) puts it higher: 26%, equating to 5.9 billion cigarettes and £3.1 billion lost.
Main hotspots include the West Midlands, London, Manchester, and Glasgow, with the Midlands by far the most concentrated.
2. Enforcement Proposal
National level:
150 new Border Force officers
3 mobile scanning units
20 sniffer-dog teams
A central Customs Intelligence Hub for freight risk profiling
Regional level (West Midlands pilot):
HMRC, Police, and Trading Standards combined under one operational command
Annual running cost about £12 million
Local level:
One-strike licence revocation for illicit sellers
Premises closure orders (12 months)
Community reward scheme for intelligence
Public awareness campaign: “Fake Smokes Kill”
3. Financial Model
Annual costs:
Border and scanning expansion: £24 million
Regional and local enforcement: £17 million
Awareness, data and admin: £9 million
Total: £50 million per year
Expected annual benefits:
Recovered tax: £200–£790 million
NHS savings: £75–£115 million
Productivity gains: £50–£100 million
Net national gain: Between £275 million and £950 million per year.
4. Health & Safety Impact
Counterfeit cigarettes are up to five times higher in heavy metals like cadmium and lead.
They often contain crushed insects, faeces, plastic fibres, and mould.
Estimates suggest 7,000–20,000 deaths annually can be linked to these toxic fakes.
Stopping the trade could cut smoking-related NHS admissions and respiratory illness significantly within five years.
5. Benefits of the Plan
Recovers up to £1 billion a year for the Treasury.
Reduces NHS pressure and health inequality.
Undermines organised crime networks.
Restores faith in real border control.
Aligns law enforcement with moral responsibility.
“As an ex-smoker, I say : either pay the full price, or stop. Don’t poison your community to save a tenner.”
6. Implementation Timeline
First 3 months: Recruit and train enforcement units.
6 months: Deploy scanners and sniffer teams.
12 months: Active seizures and prosecutions.
18–24 months: Review and roll out nationally.
Final Word
This isn’t ideological. It’s practical patriotism.
Britain cannot “take back control” if it can’t stop containers of poison crossing its borders.
Stopping the filthy trade saves lives, strengthens law, and restores integrity.
“When the factories went quiet, the smugglers started working the night shift.”