The report which recommends investigating tobacco smuggling and money laundering in Gibraltar substantiates the government's policy and more specifically, the Tax Office's policy, in its efforts to combat fraud and the black economy and highlights the economic repercussions that a phenomenon of such a scale could have on both Spain and the rest of the European Union.
Since 2006, a significant increase has been seen in the arrival of tobacco in Gibraltar through the customs post in La Línea de La Concepción. This has gone from 61.9 million packs exported in 2009 to over 110 million packs in each of the last three years, an amount that cannot be consumed by the approximately 29,000 citizens resident there. The majority of this vast quantity of tobacco subsequently re-enters Spain through illegal channels.
In parallel, there has been a significant increase in the amount of cigarettes seized, both in terms of the number of actions and in the overall amount captured.
In 2013, 60% of all seizures in Spain relating to the administrative offence of tobacco smuggling centred on Campo de Gibraltar.
This smuggling is wholly controlled by criminal organisations that have access to significant funding and are protected by the lack of action on behalf of the Government of Gibraltar, which is aware of and permits the existence of significant volumes of imported tobacco to a colony of barely 29,000 inhabitants without adopting any significant measures to control this.
Furthermore, the presence of Gibraltar and, specifically, its fiscal system and lack of transparency of information poses other associated problems that result in additional economic damage which, far from providing prosperity to the region, are economically prejudicial to the immediate environment with effects extending to the rest of the country.
Thus, the protection afforded by the Government of Gibraltar to those who are tax residents of the colony represents a major obstacle for control by the various Spanish public administration services.
As regards this lack of transparency, the Spanish Tax Office has been implementing various control activities at different levels in an attempt to combat fraud in tax havens in line with the recommendations from FATCA, the OECD and the EU.
