Customs and finance minister investigators have seized 120 million illegal cigarettes so far this year, the same amount as they discovered in 2023 as a whole, the Volkskrant has reported.  

In April, the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes rose to around €11, of which €7.81 is down to taxes, and research suggests the increase is leading more smokers to either buy their cigarettes abroad or from illegal sources.

The biggest haul so far this year was made in Rotterdam, where officials found 27 million cigarettes, which would have generated €6 million in tax had they been legal.  

In July, customs officials confiscated a consignment of eight million illegal cigarettes which were being stored in a warehouse in Someren in Brabant. That same month, they seized six million cigarettes and 4.5 tonnes of rolling tobacco during checks at Rotterdam port.

Higher taxes on cigarettes are encouraging more people to stop smoking but smuggling is also on the increase, according to research by the finance and health ministries which was published in June.

Once every two years researchers collect empty cigarette packets thrown on the street and check their origins, to gain an insight into smokers’ behaviour in the Netherlands.

In 2021, during the last survey, 15% of the empty packets had contained cigarettes which had not been subject to Dutch tobacco duties. That had risen to 25% last year, the ministries said on Tuesday.

While nearly 19% of the cigarettes had been bought in a shop in another country,  4% were either fake branded cigarettes or had been smuggled in. Two years previously, just 1% were either fake or illegal.

Research by the public health institute RIVM also indicates that smokers buy around 10% of their tobacco abroad, either by importing it themselves or asking others to do so.

Pro-countryside party BBB has sounded the alarm and called for the taxes on tobacco to be reduced to make up for the shortfall in government revenues.