Lahore, Pakistan, February 28, 2026: Muhammad Amin, Chairman of Fair Trade in Tobacco (FTT), spoke with media representatives at an Iftar in Lahore and urged sustained national focus on illegal tobacco as an economic, governance, and security-adjacent threat. He asked newsrooms to treat the subject as a public-interest beat that demands continuous scrutiny, not occasional headlines.
Speaking after Iftar, Amin said, “Illegal tobacco is often presented as a tax story, a health story, or a law-and-order story. The public record shows it can also become a security story, and Pakistan should not treat that risk as theoretical.” He noted that global assessments document how illegal tobacco profits can support organized crime and, in specific cases, provide material support or financing linked to terrorist organizations.
Referring to international typologies on the topic, Amin said, “When a trade is high-margin, cash-heavy, and perceived as low risk, it becomes a predictable financing tool for serious criminals.” He added that the same sources describe laundering patterns around illegal proceeds, including structuring, nominee accounts, and rapid cross-border value movement.
Amin cautioned against casual allegations about Pakistan’s internal situation. “No responsible stakeholder should claim, without evidence, that any specific illegal cigarette network in Pakistan is financing terrorism,” he said. “At the same time, Pakistan does not have the luxury of ignoring a documented vulnerability in a region where informal finance, smuggling corridors, and security challenges overlap.” He urged authorities to treat the issue as investigable, with financial intelligence and prosecutions guided by facts and casework.
Turning to the domestic impact, Amin said illegal tobacco continues to drain public revenues and weaken regulatory control. “The illegal tobacco economy is stealing over Rs. 400 billion in annual taxes, and it is doing so by operating outside track-and-trace, pricing rules, and health-warning requirements,” he said. “That leakage shrinks the tax base, rewards non-compliance, and undermines investor confidence in Pakistan’s ability to enforce its own rules.”
Amin asked the media to keep attention on the supply chain, not only on seizures. “Media coverage should follow the money and the logistics, and it should ask who manufactures, who transports, and who distributes,” he said. “If illegal product dominates shelf space, the state loses visibility, credibility, and control.”
He called for a fused response that aligns tax enforcement, customs, police, financial intelligence, and counterterror units around shared targets and shared datasets. “Pakistan needs a whole-of-government approach that treats illegal tobacco as a financial investigation problem, not only an excise problem,” Amin said. He urged a parallel policy track that protects compliant growers and exporters through predictable licensing, documented shipments, and time-bound inter-ministerial approvals.
FTT urged the government to intensify action against illegal manufacturing, smuggling, and counterfeiting, while supporting compliant activity through predictable rules and swift case outcomes. Amin concluded, “The media can help by keeping this issue in the public eye, and the government must pay attention because the cost is not only revenue, it is national resilience.”