The Australian Border Force (ABF) has intercepted almost a kilotonne of illicit tobacco, and over 4 million vapes across the border continuum in four months following the commencement of Operation PRINTWALL.
ABF’s expanded reach, strengthened controls and flexible partnerships approach has delivered extraordinary detections, choking the illicit tobacco and vape trade.
Launched in December 2025, Operation PRINTWALL has significantly boosted the interception of illicit tobacco offshore at the Australian border and within the community – further reducing illicit tobacco stocks and breaking the business model of the criminal syndicates that are profiting from it.
Between 1 December 2025 and 31 March 2026, the ABF stripped an unprecedented amount of illicit tobacco and vapes from the supply chain, including 998.5 tonnes of illicit cigarettes and loose-leaf tobacco, nearly three-quarters of which were detected both at and within the NSW border alone.
Pre-border (offshore)
Growing trust, deepened collaboration and an expanding global alliance with international partners are enabling the ABF to disrupt illicit tobacco at scale, stopping it offshore before it reaches Australian communities.
Between 1 December 2025 to 31 March 2026, ABF worked closely with international partners to prevent over:
- 35.6 million cigarette sticks, 257.4 kgs of loose-leaf tobacco (representing a total of 26.5 tonnes of illicit tobacco), and 500,000 vapes from entering Australia
At the Australian border
Between 1 December 2025 and 31 March 2026, the ABF’s highly skilled officers leveraged their experience, intelligence and operational expertise at the border to:
- Detect more than 786 million illicit cigarettes and more than 347 tonnes of loose-leaf tobacco (representing a total of over 937 tonnes of illicit tobacco), with a combined duty evaded of over AUD $ 2 billion and;
- Detect more than 3.6 million vapes
In just two days in January, officers seized more than 210,000 vapes in NSW through air cargo consignments from China. Soon after, a shipping container described to contain yoga mats and eye masks was targeted for examination in NSW, where officers found over 9.9 tonnes of loose-leaf tobacco concealed in the consignment.
In Victoria, ABF officers selected three female passengers for a baggage examination after they arrived on an international flight from Bali, with subsequent examinations revealing they attempted to smuggle in a total of 160kg of loose-leaf tobacco in their suitcases. The tobacco was seized by the ABF, and all three women are expected to be charged with Customs Act offences and face prosecution through the courts.
In Queensland, ABF officers weren’t fooled by a wall of toilet paper and seized over five million illicit cigarettes hidden behind it in a shipping container arriving from China.
Post-Border (Domestic Operations)
The ABF has built and expanded trusted partnerships with traditional and non‑traditional agencies, enabling a coordinated, multi‑agency response to serious organised crime and domestic enforcement. Between 1 December 2025 and 31 March 2026, the ABF has:
- Detected over 20.6 million illicit cigarettes and over 19.5 tonnes of loose-leaf tobacco (representing a total of 35 tonnes of illicit tobacco) and over 10,000 vapes
- Arrested two individuals (in QLD and WA) for illicit tobacco-related offences
This included 10 illicit tobacco operations in Western Australia, where a targeted warrant at a freight forwarding company in Malaga and Welshpool netted over 390,000 illicit cigarettes, over 50 kg of tobacco and over 4,390 vapes.
ABF Assistant Commissioner Tony Smith said ABF teams around the country were targeting more shipping containers, inspecting more air cargo consignments, searching more international travelers suspected of carrying illicit tobacco, and conducting more domestic warrants than ever before.
“The total haul of 998.5 tonnes of illicit tobacco is so vast, that if the cigarettes seized were laid end to end, they would stretch 71,599 kilometers – almost enough to wrap around the earth twice,” Assistant Commissioner Smith said.
“Since the commencement of PRINTWALL, the ABF’s work has stripped product from the supply chain, increased risk for criminal operators, and placed tangible pressure on the illicit trade’s economics nationwide.
“These results have not only reduced the amount of product available for circulation but has dealt blows to the domestic black market, the supply chains across the border continuum, and the criminal operators behind them.
“The ABF is committed to working with our partner agencies, here and overseas, to protect the Australian border and keep Australians safe – this includes stopping illicit tobacco offshore before it gets to our shores, at our border, and domestically.
“Thanks to our increased focus across the entire border continuum, we increasing our detections and seizures, and blocking both the criminals and the enablers in the illicit tobacco trade.”
Anyone with information about the importation of illicit tobacco or cigarettes should contact Border Watch at abf.gov.au/borderwatch. By reporting suspicious activities, you help protect Australia’s border and the community. Information can be provided anonymously.
So I’m told it’s a good thing that Big Tobacco is working with Big Grubbernment to protect us from criminals who want to kill and destroy our budgets and livelihoods with lower priced products?
.
We’ve seen how supposedly ‘brilliant’ and ‘effective’ Big Pharma and Big Grubbernment were in managing the 2019 ‘ Chinese flu’ plandemic and how they kept the public safe. Lets hope they perform half as well this time, lest many among us go broke!
.
I love ‘competition’, and particularly in our ‘competitive’ monopoly markets controlled by Corporate-Public ventures. They always favour the corporate fascists rather than the worker communists. Sadly, NEITHER of those gives a sht about Joe Blow, the ordinary consumer. Except for bleeding him to the max, for as long as he can keep bleeding and breathing.
.
That’s why we have strict laws, to protect us from UNAPPROVED criminal competition, and to keep our Corporate-Public monopoly enterprises at their peak and in SUPER NORMAL profits.
Take the last digit off both numbers to get a far more accurate picture of real tobacco seizure numbers…..
78 million illegal cigies.
34 tonne of loose tobacco.
In other words, fuck all.
But they need to try to burn the impression into your brain that they are superior and are “going to get you” no matter what, hence their predictable, inflated lies.
They are fucking pathetic!
[…] Source link […]
Typical, everyone goes ooh aah then on to the next article. No one is stopping these parasites from screwing the public, they’re doing it because they can. Face it, it’s human nature to take advantage of others, acceptance is a matter if choice.
,
The criminal cartel created the problem with the ridiculous greed and the attempt to force people to stop smoking by pricing them out…as another pointed out, we have nicotine receptors and another pointed out cannabis, which all cells have CB1 and CB2 receptors…anyway, the nicotine receptors are BLOCKED by nicotine, preventing the covid 19 injections from doing major damage to the smoker…as they access the same receptor as nictine. I’d almost forgotten that!
+
Is that the real reason for the massive price increase, to unblock our nicotine receptors by forcing us to quit, leaving us far more susceptible to the covid 19 injections? I’d bet.
I didn’t take their junk anyway.
Good post Pat, couldn’t have said better myself. The real criminals are labelling those who supply at a more reasonable and affordable price as ‘the real criminals’. Satanic inversion, always.
As a DSP and a smoker, the criminal cartel that calls itself government can go get fucked. Once I have bought my tobacco they can’t take it off me! $30 for 50grams that would cost over $200 and is just half of what I smoke in a fortnight. I literally cannot afford their overpriced poisoned rubbish tobacco.
Maybe if the gov’t weren’t so greedy there’d be no need for any of it. People can’t afford to pay for the ridiculously priced “legal” cigarettes so they have no choice but to buy the “illegal” ones. It’s only TOBACCO. Anyone would think it’s opium the way they’re going on. Pathetic. I don’t smokebut many do and should not be stopped. We govern ourselves, as to what we put into our bodies. Noone else.
Nicotine is like CO2 – harmless.
The corporate tobacco is laden with chemicals, who knows what, I never saw it written on any packet.
The Border Farce needs something to stuff in their furnace while they smuggle the coke out the back door to their biker mates.
Yeah Pat
It’s one big protection racket; the governments and their armed contractors (mercenaries) going Al Capone.
If the governments cared, they would outlaw all cancer sticks, cancer jabs.
Their takeover of medicinal marijuana, unaffordable for pensioners the controllers see as useless eaters in need of euthanising.
There’s money in the war on the people.
If their products were proven safer for consumption, yes, but me thinks not.
They censor young men and women because they care about them; a ruse most likely to implant their narratives daily on fresh brain cells without opposing opinions but I’ve never heard them calling out Baal’s total demolition of 3000 years old cities in southern Lebanon, where white phosphorus has been suffocating to death, and burning men and women of all ages to the bone.
They care not, they’re full of piss and wind.
The Taxation Mob told me that there are 5 varieties of tobacco and that they only tax the 2 that they deem to be commercially used for human consumption going on taste .
I’m surprised you’ve sent us an article urging us to dob entrepreneurs in for trying to provide the public with goods which our totalitarian govt has taxed beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen. Apart from that, it glorified the role of the leviathan state and its flunkeys. Please, no more.
“and keep Australians safe” – What horse shit. The penalties for growing tobacco are HIGHER than for growing marijuana, the bastards want their excise tax that is what this is all about.
I’d love to get a pinch of Skoal Long Cut Straight in Australia, but even that is illegal. Why? You don’t smoke it.
The article quotes ABF Assistant Commissioner Tony Smith – “… The ABF is committed to working with our partner agencies, here and overseas, to protect the Australian border and keep Australians safe…”
Sure, folks, they’re keeping Australians “safe” from CHEAP CIGARETTES. Seems to me they’re keeping their fake “government” MOB BOSSES safe from COMPETITION.
So who’s keeping Australians safe from THEM?
Who is most affected by this wonderful work to seize this elicit tobacco?
The people on the streets, the homeless, unemployed, dependent on state handouts.
They don’t get enough support to live well. They live rough. No roof over their head, no soup kitchen, no where to cook. So their diet is ultra processed packaged or fried take away. They don’t even know that the reason they are diabetic is because their biggest addiction is poisonous sugar and they are already dehydrated and don’t know that drinking caffeine only makes that worse. The medical services don’t teach that.
When they land in hospital the first thing that happens is they are put on a saline drip – so someone knows about hydration. Why aren’t there water fountains with filtered water for all to drink. This is the number one thing that would help public health.
So great job by the police in seizing the supply of cheap tobacco for our brothers and sisters living on the street. Why is tobacco taxed anyway? It has been proved that nicotine is not addictive, but the chemicals they add are very addictive. In fact the body needs nicotine. Every cell in the body has nicotine receptors. The next food with the most nicotine is potatoes tomatoes and egg plants and I have never met anyone addicted to those. Tobacco leaves should be available in the veggie shops and farmers markets and backyard gardens.
The cigarette companies now own many of the large processed food companies, have you ever wondered why you can’t stop eating some biscuits until they are all gone?
I hope the police feel good about a job well done, making life harder for the fringe dwellers.
Pat said it all!
British Tobacco Company had a Pastoral Company called Naroo Pastoral that had properties in NSW & Tasmania running sheep & cattle .
what a load of !!
if they focused on humanity’s needs our world be a better one, but not strip us of our choices, in life
Hey folks,
Anyone seeing the elephant in the room here?
The article opines – “… further reducing illicit tobacco stocks and breaking the business model of the criminal syndicates that are profiting from it…”
… because the “criminal syndicates” business model relies on tobacco which escapes the fake corporate “government” SLUSH FUND as being “illicit”.
The “criminal syndicates” supplying tobacco products to the Australian public are just catering to the DEMAND generated by the RACKETEERING “market intervention” by that OTHER “criminal syndicate”, namely our fake foreign-owned CORPORATE “government”. If it wasn’t for the RACKETEERING BUSINESS MODEL of our fake foreign-owned CORPORATE “government” bleeding the Australian public DRY, those tobacco-importing “criminal syndicates” wouldn’t even HAVE a “business model”.
Same as the ALCOHOL industry, folks, yet another CASH COW for the CRIMINAL SYNDICATE which masquerades as Australia’s “governance”, and like any successful band of RACKETEERING GANGSTERS, they have the GUNS & the MUSCLE to keep anyone else’s fingers OUTTA their MONEY PIE, they have those corporate ARMIES of shit-for-brains hired mercenary ARSEHOLES entrenched throughout every Australian state and territory who masquerade as Australia’s “police” to come rape your dog and kill your cat and beat you into a bloody pulp if you even THINK about cheating the fake “government” MOBSTERS outta THEIR outrageous big beefy CUT. And the so-called “Australian Border Force”, because no mobster cartel is ever going to allow competing products to come into their territory, are they?
And the article quotes Assistant Commissioner Smith – “… The total haul of 998.5 tonnes of illicit tobacco is so vast, that if the cigarettes seized were laid end to end, they would stretch 71,599 kilometers – almost enough to wrap around the earth twice…”
… and if we stuffed every single one of those illicit cigarettes up the butts of every last Australian Border Force goon, it still wouldn’t wipe the smile off their hired mercenary thug faces.