(Luxembourg, 28 July 2025) – At the request of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Palermo (Italy), the Italian Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza) of Palermo carried out extensive searches this week (22 July), uncovering one of the largest illegal cigarette production facilities in Europe.
The factory, located in Stornara (province of Foggia), was equipped for large-scale production, with the capacity to produce up to 2 million cigarettes per day. The estimated value of the site is over €1.3 million.
Searches were conducted across the regions of Apulia and Sicily, targeting the illicit logistics network behind the facility. The searches were led by officers from the Palermo Provincial Command, with support from units in Bari and Foggia.
Inside the 3 000 m² industrial site, officers found 45 pallets of cigarettes weighing around 13 tonnes, 165 bags of shredded tobacco, and 134 pallets of precursors. These included packaging materials bearing counterfeit logos of well-known tobacco brands.
Ten individuals of Bulgarian and Ukrainian nationality were found living in makeshift accommodations inside the factory. They are suspected of being involved in the illegal production and possession of smuggled tobacco products, and in trademark counterfeiting.
Further materials used to produce cigarettes linked to the same criminal network were seized at an additional site in Andria.
The discovery follows several months of investigative work that began when smuggled cigarettes were seized in Palermo. Through months of surveillance, investigators were able to trace the supply chain and identify the production sites, despite the sophisticated counter-surveillance measures used by the suspects.
Had the seized products reached the market, the estimated loss in evaded VAT and excise duties would have caused losses of over €3.2 million to the national and EU budgets. The illegal factory was capable of generating illicit profits of approximately €350 000 per day. Over the course of a year, this would have amounted to more than €120 million in profits, with an estimated damage to public finances of around €80 million.
All persons concerned are presumed innocent until proven guilty in the competent Italian courts of law.
The EPPO is the independent public prosecution office of the European Union. It is responsible for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to judgment crimes against the financial interests of the EU.