Local activity to disrupt the supply of illicit tobacco

National Trading Standards (NTS) works, together with the support of His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), to tackle the sale of illicit tobacco at retail level.

Preventing the sale of illegal tobacco protects young people and adults from a habit that is proven to damage health. The illicit tobacco trade also impacts legitimate businesses trying to operate honestly, and this hits tax revenues to the tune of about £2 billion every year. This is a significant sum of money that could potentially be used to benefit public health. The illicit tobacco trade makes smoking more accessible to young people and has links to wider criminality, causing disruption in local communities and funding more serious crime.

Combatting the illegal tobacco trade has always relied on strong partnership working across multiple agencies. Since 2021, collaboration between HMRC and NTS has enabled a greater impact to be made against this illicit trade. Enforcement action by Local Authority Trading Standards is key to disrupting the sale of illegal tobacco and national coordination of local activity is being stepped up from 2025, with additional HMRC funding being made available to support this work. This collaborative working against illicit tobacco supplies is known as Operation CeCe.

Increasing tobacco prices

We know that increasing tobacco prices is the number one lever to encourage smokers to quit and discourage young people, who tend to have less disposable income, from starting to smoke. The illegal trade undermines this. Our operation therefore focuses on cutting off supplies - from the streets, right to the top of the chain. This will make it harder for the criminals and protect legitimate businesses. As more intelligence is shared and acted upon, together we can help to stamp out this illegal trade.