However, the threat posed to safety, security, and the rule of law in Europe, the United States and around the globe is where the interests of our company and the concerns of this Commission most pointedly intersect.

The concern for this issue is shared by multiple agencies within the U.S. government, including the State Department, which released a December 2015 interagency report entitled, "The Global Illicit Trade in Tobacco: A Threat to National Security." In this report, the State Department described the problem as follows:

Like other forms of illicit trade, the illicit trade in tobacco products, commonly referred to as cigarette smuggling, is a growing threat to U.S. national interests.Internationally, it fuels transnational crime, corruption, and terrorism. As it converges with other criminal activities it undermines the rule of law and the licit market economy, and creates greater insecurity and instability in many of today's security "hot spots" around the world.

[...]Threats to Security:

The increasing threat to security was recently illustrated by the European Commission:

"The illicit tobacco trade has long been recognized as a main source of revenue for organized crime, and, in some cases, terrorist groups. The new European Agenda on Security adopted by the European Commission on 28 April 2015 recognizes the importance of fighting cigarette smuggling as a means of cutting off criminal groups from this revenue source."

Illicit tobacco trade as a threat to the national security of the United States:

The past two decades have provided a number of cases demonstrating the direct link between cigarette smuggling and serious organized criminal and terrorist activity in the United States. Illicit cigarette tax stamps helped to fund one of the convicted bombers in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and U.S. government reports have found that illegal cigarette smuggling networks here in the U.S. are being used to fund terrorist networks in the Middle East like Hezbollah, Hamas, and al Qaeda. As an American company, we are particularly troubled by these cases and supportive of any efforts the U.S. government takes to shine a light on this problem.

Security threats in other parts of the world:

At the 2009 International Law Enforcement Intellectual Property Crime Conference, Ronald K. Noble, INTERPOL Secretary General, stated:

Paramilitary groups and organized crime rely on counterfeiting - especially of cigarettes - to reap huge profits and even to fund terrorist activities.

Experts have also said illegal cigarette trafficking is a source of funding for terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS). According to one of the witnesses appearing before this commission today, Dr. Louise Shelley:

Oil is not ISIS' only source of revenue...Still more funding comes from the sale of counterfeit cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, cell phones, antiquities and foreign passports. - Foreign Affairs Magazine, 2015.

Christian Eckert, France's Minister of Budget, also recognized the link between terrorism and illicit trade in an interview in 2014, where he stated the following:

What is clearly evolving is to involve Customs in the fight against terrorism. It is demonstrated and known that many jihadists are involved in petty crime (counterfeit, contraband of tobacco, drugs).