Trade goes up in smoke

WITH the lure of huge profits, the illicit cigarette trade, worth billions, has attracted its share of underworld figures. “It costs around R2 to manufacture a box of cigarettes, so if you can smuggle tobacco in without being recorded, the profit exceeds that on guns, cocaine and everything,” says one insider.

The proliferation of illicit cigarettes has made it harder for small, independent companies, united under the Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association (Fita), to be seen as legitimate operators.

The growing controversy surrounding ATM’s operation in not helping.

These small manufacturers have accused ATM of flooding the market with cigarettes selling below R7 a pack — a red flag as each box should attract tax of R13 — which they say is now making it harder to sell their own “value-branded” cigarettes.

“Because of [Yusuf Kajees’] behaviour, and the way he operates we don’t want to be associated with ATM … he is the epitome of what they accuse us of,” says an owner.

This tension evidently led Kajee to seek the company of Faizel “Kappie” Smith, who arrived with him at a Fita meeting in August. Kappie was an accomplice in Brett Kebble’s murder. .

A few weeks later, when Fita chairwoman Belinda Walter was assaulted, Walter laid a complaint with police. In an affidavit, she said she was lured to a pizza restaurant near her office by a woman claiming to have documents containing “intimate information” about a Fita member. But when she arrived, the woman punched her on the jaw, climbed into a vehicle without number plates and fled.

“The [police] officer has advised that an independent witness identified Faizel Smith ‘Kappie’ as the driver of the vehicle,” said Walter.