The German Customs and Finance Union (BDZ) and the National Association of the Tobacco Industry and Novel Products (BVTE) have warned of a growing black market for tobacco and nicotine products. They said that while the illicit market is expanding rapidly, it remains largely invisible because there is no reliable overall statistic available. A large portion of the trade proceeds through online orders and small consignments, which makes it difficult to capture in official data. Consequently, credible estimates of the total market size are currently impossible.
Thomas Liebel, federal chairman of the BDZ, confirmed that illegal sales are real. Customs officials highlighted the consequences of weak enforcement. They pointed to cases involving illicit e‑cigarettes, which illustrate high investigation and analysis costs, long storage periods, significant safety risks from lithium batteries, and high custody and disposal expenses that are fully borne by taxpayers. In a single investigation by the Munich customs enforcement, the costs for storing and destroying seized vapes alone reached about €750,000.
Jan Mücke, managing director of the BVTE, cautioned against policy errors that could benefit organized crime. “The state should focus on enforcing the existing e‑cigarette bans more effectively instead of constantly proposing new bans that are poorly enforced and merely fuel illegal trade” he said.