“Facebook has become the leading tobacconist in France”: on the Internet, counterfeit cigarettes are sold more and more

L'achat de cigarettes de contrefaçon sur Internet augmente de plus en plus. MAXPPP – © Tim Somerset

Alors qu'une étude de la société Webdrone révèle que les ventes de cigarettes de contrefaçon sur les réseaux sociaux s’envolent, les buralistes dénoncent l’inaction des plateformes.

They sell like hotcakes, not in tobacco shops but on the internet: counterfeit cigarettes are all the rage on the Internet, and more precisely on Facebook and Snapchat. According to Didier Douilly, commercial director of the company Webdrone, a start-up specializing in the detection of counterfeits on the web, several clandestine workshops in France but also abroad have been dismantled since 2021, reports Le Parisien. Cigarettes represent 90% of sales offered on the social network Snapchat.

Up to six times cheaper

Online, cartridges sell for a little more than around twenty euros on average, compared to 120 euros in stores. Same difference for boxes which sell for 1,200 euros on social networks compared to 6,000 euros on the traditional market.

Like this 39-year-old motorist arrested in early January in Saône-et-Loire with, on board, all the components allowing the manufacture of counterfeit cigarettes, France is an ideal playground for traffickers, especially since the new increase in taxes on packages which now reach 12 euros. This counterfeiting network also creates a shortfall for manufacturers, which could be around a billion euros in France, according to Le Parisien.

Facebook, "the first tobacconist in France"

"Facebook has become the leading tobacconist in France. In addition, it is open 24 hours a day", loosely, at the microphone of our colleagues, Vincent Zappia, head of public affairs at BAT. "In 2023, our volume sales fell by 8.2% in 2023, supports Philippe Coy, president of the National Confederation of Tobacconists. And it’s not because the French smoke less. Facebook and others have the means to prevent these sales, but they do not do so."

If Snapchat reminds that the purchase or sale of cigarettes or illegal products is strictly against its rules, nevertheless, the social network ;must respect the confidentiality of communications and therefore does not have access to content published on its platform