Europe – Brown-noser

Smuggling, tax evasion: Philip Morris owes, to the Italian State alone, not less than 80 billion dollars

Bernardo Provenzano

Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Cosa Nostra, suspected of being the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia Family from the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi (Boss of Bosses) until his arrest in 2006 after more than four decades on the run

The accounts Yesmoke has been able to examine go back to the 1975 to 1995 period; they were transmitted by the administration of the Italian monopolies (Monopoli Italiani) to the Finance Police (Guardia di Finanza) on May 22, 1995, and they show 60,591 billion old lire of lost fiscal revenues, equal to 37.5 billion dollars. All taxes evaded by Philip Morris, lost income for the Italian State.

The rest, that should bring the total to 80 billion dollars or more, is the fruit of Yesmoke's calculations.

Is it possible that in Europe there is no one who has the will, the integrity, and the courage to say that the band of thieves called Philip Morris, sooner or later, one way or another, will have to pay up for its crimes and its thievery?

Today we are seeing, with a sense of impotence, the discouraging sight of a top official inside the European Union who is actively protecting the image and the honor of Philip Morris and basically, brownnosing criminals.

This is what Siim Kallas, vice president of the European Union appears to be doing with his statements published in an article on the official of the European Union website.

It's incredible… Is Big Tobacco benefiting from the protection of the boss of bosses of all the mafias, a certain Bernardo Provenzano da Corleone?

While in Europe "omertà" - the code of secrecy reigns, in the United States tons of horrifying, once top-secret documents have been made public that provide evidence on the crimes committed by the cigarette manufacturing cartel, with Philip Morris at its head.

Over there, for some time now, citizens have been able to read on the front pages of the most prestigious newspapers, how the top managers of Big Tobacco have been able to organise the penetration of the world markets through smuggling (including the Third World countries), how they have pushed cigarette smoking addiction using chemical cocktails, and how they have fought the government's educational campaigns on the damage of smoking directed to young people.

In America, the legal battles to make a Philip Morris cough up money speak of sums of many hundreds of billions of dollars, and in spite of the fact that Big Tobacco in the meanders and the cavils of American justice have almost always got off free, at least Americans know and speak about it without fear and without obtuse reverence.

On the shelves of local stores in America, you will find only Big Tobacco's products…. but, at least there, you can freely affirm that Big Tobacco is an association of criminals.

Nostalgia of "Old Europe"

Once upon a time, in far off 2000, someone in Europe had the courage to denounce the cartel of cigarette manufacturers.

To discover this, you have venture into the dark files of the website of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Government and dig up the "Ricorso della Comunità Europea contro le multinazionali del tabacco" (Recourse of the European Community against the Tobacco Multinationals)

Here we were able to ascertain that also in the European Union there was some talk about some very hot issues, but except for a mention here and there, they were not reported by the mass media, of any sign or political colour.

So, here we were able to read surprising accusations which in today's Italian political rhetoric would be defined as seriously incautious “gravemente incaute” or “irresponsabili”. Like the charge that states that Philip Morris had a determining role in the direction, management and control of smuggling operations inside the European Community…"through corporate directives issued at the highest company levels”.

On the site of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Government, you can also read serious and detailed accusations regarding drug traffic : "…The smuggling activities of the Defendant Philip Morris have enabled the drug lords to recycle their illicit profits."

And it was not a group of incautious, no-global students who made these statements, but the top officials of the European Union. What mysterious, epochal change has taken place since then?

The Triumph of the Brownnosers

The outcome of that prudent flame of independence and pride, that the citizens practically never even heard about, had only the effect of leading to that famous Bluff-Agreement of 9 July 2004, according to which Philip Morris is paying to the European Union as a "voluntary contribution" 1,200,000.00 dollars in easy instalments of 120 million dollars per year, interest free.

Thanks to this agreement, Philip Morris was able to bury all its crimes and all its debts, not only in Italy (where the billions of dollars to pay would have been not less than 80 without counting the interest), but also in the entire European Union.

And what's more, they were all careful to point out that this was a voluntary contribution of that highly respectable company, which in the public opinion of Europe was to be considered a meritorious bulwark in the fight against crime.

And that's how Philip Morris, after taking over the Italian and European markets by pushing its Marlboros at "duty-free" prices (also called contraband), succeeded in crossing over to the opposite side of the barricades and officially began collaborating with the OLAF (the European Union's Anti-Fraud Organism).

So, today the cigarette manufacturing cartel, or tobacco mafia, or "Big Tobacco" keeps watch, hand in hand with the OLAF, to prevent any other criminal cigarette vendors from penetrating with smuggling into that European market, which has now become the Tobacco Giants' exclusive hunting preserve.

And to get all this, all Philip Morris has to do today is devolve a small part of its current profits; profits that benefit from criminal actions committed in the past, actions that are no longer necessary.

Siim Kallas

Today, the vice president of the European Commission, Siim Kallas, in charge of the battle against fraud, in a brownnosing article of last June 26th published on the European Union Website, and promptly taken up without the slightest critical analysis by authoritative newspapers, declared referring to Philip Morris and to the OLAF:

Siim Kallas, Vice President of the European Commission Administrative Affairs, Audit and Anti-Frau

Siim Kallas, Vice President of the European Commission Administrative Affairs, Audit and Anti-Frau

“This cooperation to date has exceeded all expectations and sets an example of what industry and law enforcement can do when they work together in pursuit of a common goal”.

The brilliant vice president only forgot that Philip Morris didn't pay its bills… if he was running a shop, hèd be running into serious problems!

Says Valerie Rampi, EU anti-fraud and audit spokeswoman for anti-fraud, a close collaborator of Siim Kallas:

"Since the project started there has been less smuggling of Philip Morris cigarettes, such as Marlboro and Marlboro Light". … What a surprise!

In the article, after remembering and praising what we call the Bluff-Agreement of 9 July 2004 (the one of Philip Morris's “voluntary contribution”), there are words of praise for the seizure of 400 million cigarettes during the last year.

These would be about 40 containers containing 50,000 cartons each; 85 to 90% of them turned out to be faked. Of this quantity, then, only 4 to 6 containers contained cigarettes that were not counterfeited, therefore supposedly produced by Philip Morris, as the subject of the article describes only of the benefits of the agreement with Philip Morris.

But unfortunately, there is no mention of the fact that, on June 6, 2006, the GREY MARKET SHOP of the Yesmoke.ch site: "the online shop for smugglers", sold, almost exclusively to unknown companies, 1,203,000 cartons of 200 cigarettes.

These were more than 24 containers of products, mostly Philip Morris, inspected by Andre Reiman, the great specialist of Philip Morris in the fight against smuggling, who in the past had visited Yesmoke's warehouse.

Where can this quantity of cigarettes have ended up? A quantity much more "exalting" than the four to six containers confiscated by the highly efficient OLAF during its entire year of hard work in collaboration with Philip Morris?

While some containers went to Cuba, where we know they were legally placed on the market, a good part probably headed for China (…. but what can we do about it?), while for all the rest, we haven't a clue as to where it may have ended up.

And what if that modest booty, consisting of those 4 to 6 containers of not faked cigarettes, had arrived right from the GREY MARKET SHOP of Yesmoke? Why didn't the OLAF feel the need to investigate? It wouldn't have had any problems, Yesmoke's warehouse is in the European Union, at Rosendaal, in Holland, where everything is done openly, in the light of the day.

Maybe Siim Kallas doesn't want to damage Philip Morris's reputation because he has some personal economic benefit? Maybe hès just a "coglione" (moron)? Or maybe, brownnosing Philip Morris, the great tobacco multinational, is only a mysterious aspect of the human psyche?

Pay the bill … that's all

All doubts could be clarified by Yesmoke Tobacco Spa, an Italian, and especially a European company, a producer who will soon make itself known not with stupid slogans, but with striking, unambiguous, and highly provocative initiatives.

Lined up alongside Yesmoke, there will be those of any political colour, who hope that Big Tobacco, in one way or another, pays up what it owes, to the last cent. Starting right from Italy, the country where Philip Morris has stolen the most.

Actions of disturbance and sabotage, typical of the parlour games of Italian politics, will not be admissible against Yesmoke, because it would mean promoting foreign companies, not Italian, and especially, not European.

So, it is improbable that we will see one of those ritual inquiries for mafia and corruption with telephone interceptions and the decisive revelations of questionable personages. And that press, specialised in these ambiguous rituals, that habitually nourishes the population of credulous coglioni, will understand that it had better step aside.

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  • June 16th, 2006
  • This page is also available in: Italian

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