"The popularity of illegal products is easy to explain- the average price of smuggled cigarettes is almost two times lower than the legal price: 55 rubles against 93 rubles. The share of smuggled tobacco products in Russia reached 15.6% in the third quarter 2019 of the total volume of sales, which was 7.2 percent higher than in 2018. The main suppliers of illegal cigarettes to Russia are Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia," said the report of Evotor company.
The highest share of smuggled tobacco fr om Belarus goes to the Smolensk and Chelyabinsk regions- 22%.
"Dagestan is on the third place, wh ere the share of sale of illegal Belarus cigarettes makes 10%. There is a big share of illegal cigarettes from Belarus in Vologotsk region (8%), Ivanovo region (7%), St. Petersburg (6%) and the Volgograd region (5%)," said the report.
Photo source: picture from an open source