Smuggling across the divide

For the past 22 years, crossing over the crossing points has become relatively normalised: visiting the sites, old family homes or even just for an evening drink.

But with the opening up of the crossing points in 2003 also came a new phenomenon: the smuggling of goods of all kinds.

Smuggling had always gone on, of course, but since 2003, smuggling has become hugely imaginative, a big business and very, very profitable.

There seems to be nothing that is not worth trying to sneak across the green line: from boxes of washing detergent to coolants for old air conditioning systems, which are no longer sold in the south. But the very top of the list – and the most common – are cigarettes and tobacco products.

In 2025 alone, a whopping 2,865 cartons of 200 cigarettes smuggled from the north were confiscated at Larnaca and Paphos airports. Add to that several hundreds of similar cartons found in storage rooms or homes – in one case, more than 2,500, hidden in a container behind a parrot cage – belonging to individuals who have made the smuggling of tobacco their main profession.

“It started very soon after the checkpoints were established,” George Constantinou, customs officer and customs department spokesman, tells the Cyprus Mail. But the practice has since spiralled enormously.

“The volume of seizures from air passengers in 2024 increased by 110 per cent in relation to 2023. From 2022 to 2024, the quantities smuggled increased by 650 per cent. Additionally, an increase was observed in the volume of tobacco products in inland seizures at crossing points and premises and warehouses,” he says.

He says that during the first years after the checkpoints opened and the prevailing preliminary regulations at the time, moving goods from one side to the other was strictly prohibited.

Though there are doubts about whether checks to enforce these regulations were actually carried out, with time, and most importantly, since Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, the regulations have been adjusted.

This ultimately allowed for what Constantinou calls a more “humane” approach in the trading of goods: the establishment of the green line regulation (EC no 866/2004).

The regulation facilitates the movement of both goods and people between both parts of the island, including specific rules to ensure that people crossing from the north are entitled to enter the EU and that goods meet EU standards.

The total maximum value of goods contained in the personal luggage of persons currently amounts to €260. This does not apply to tobacco products, alcohol or any other kind of goods purchased with the intent of further redistribution.

Cigarettes, at less than half the price in the south – two versus five euros for a pack of Marlboro – have since become somewhat of a top import from the north.

As long as people stick to the permitted two packs per person and crossing from the north to the south, everyone’s happy – at least in theory.

The patchwork of responsibilities among authorities of both sides was seized as an opportunity by criminals to start with the professional smuggling of goods from the north, with cigarettes making up the vast majority of it.

A professional business

Constantinou spends a significant part of his work hours dealing with all sorts of smuggling cases on the island, but tobacco makes up most of the cases.

He says that, given that the packs are lacking EU health warnings, the north is the obvious culprit, but he emphasises that customs have no actual proof due to their limited jurisdiction and the lack of cooperation between both sides.

As evident by the figures mentioned earlier, the smuggling of tobacco products has reached significant levels. But there’s a difference between the birdcage/kafeneio case and the boxes found at the airports: They target different markets.

“For smuggling on the domestic market, we mostly have Greek Cypriots involved. When products are meant for international markets, mainly the UK, we see more Turkish Cypriots involved,” Constantinou says.

He then describes some recent cases his department investigated.

“There were three vans offering home-delivery to several partners!” he says, “not to mention the case with the parrot cage”.

The parrot case, so far the biggest “domestic” case in 2025, concerns an elderly Greek Cypriot kafeneio owner. Constantinou said that officers had been noticing the man for some time before they became suspicious.

Officers later seized 2,595 cartons, each containing 200 cigarettes,1,384 cartons of heated cigarettes, 90.75 kilograms of rolling tobacco and 272 kilograms of shisha tobacco in a container buried in the ground behind a parrot cage.

The coffee shop owner had allegedly regularly “stocked up” in two special vehicles and sold from his coffee shop.

In the vehicles, officers later found another 38 cartons of cigarettes, 56 cartons of heated cigarettes and several kilograms of rolling and shisha tobacco. In the coffeeshop, 41 cartons of cigarettes, 35 cartons of cigarettes and almost four kilograms of rolling tobacco were confiscated. Investigations into the case are ongoing.

When it comes to seizures at the airports, Constantinou describes a different pattern.

“We had several cases of Turkish Cypriots headed to the UK and travelling with one to three suitcases full of cigarettes,” he says.

At first, Larnaca airport was the main exit point, but Paphos has long since become a second hotspot for smugglers. 

“Seizures occur after controls on air passengers – members of organised groups – who buy tobacco from the north and use the island’s airports of Larnaca and Paphos to smuggle them to other countries, mainly the United Kingdom, and sell them on the black market,” Constantinos explains.

He says that people attempting to smuggle at the airports came in all ages and genders.

“We had a woman travelling with her 13-year-old daughter,” Constantinos says.

The smugglers carry up to three suitcases full of tobacco products with them and typically have European passports, allowing them to travel freely, with a recent trend of people from Eastern European countries like Romania and Poland engaging in the illegal trade.

How does one smuggle 2,000 cartons of cigarettes?

However, Constantinos does identify one thing that unites them all.

“Their motivation is money,” he says.

Many of those caught claim they didn’t know what was in the bag they were carrying and were just carrying out a “job”, others were found with locked suitcases they supposedly didn’t have the keys for.

But behind the individual couriers, Constantinos points to something more organised. He says larger smuggling networks were operating behind the scenes, the “big fish”, some of which are presumed to operate from the UK and some even from the north. But these are just suspicions.

So how do such massive quantities of cigarettes make it across the border? How can 2,000 cartons of cigarettes go unnoticed, even if they were brought over in smaller quantities?

While some smugglers do slip through official checkpoints, Constantinos says most large hauls are trafficked through the unmonitored parts of the buffer zone.

 “They mostly bring the goods through the non-patrolled areas of the green line,” he says.

Beyond seizures at airports and through routine checks on postal and courier packages – sent to recipients all over Europe, Constantinos says that the largest volumes of confiscated tobacco are, to little surprise, typically found in sea cargo containers. Yet, he says that these inspections are infrequent, with only three major checks carried out between 2022 and 2025.

Once seized, the goods are counted on-site and transported to customs department warehouses across the island, where they remain until investigations are complete.

After that, the outcome is final: the products are destroyed in special facilities under strict supervision. From July to August 2025, the content of 40 suitcases was destroyed. Another destruction process is set for the end of September.

And then Constantinou turns to answer the elephant-in-the-room question.

“There are very strict regulations, I can assure you that none of us ever takes any of the seized goods – even though people love to think that,” Constantinos laughs.

What makes smuggling so profitable?

Inevitably, the question of what keeps smugglers proceeding with the business despite the double, or partly even triple-controlled borders, arises.

Paradoxically, it is precisely this layer cake – and the lack of intercommunication between the authorities – which, not solely but to a big extent, allows for smuggling from the island to flourish.

People pass from the unmonitored areas of the green line with vans full of cigarettes to sell them in the south. The cigarettes seized in dozens of suitcases at the airports likely don’t just magically make their way into the luggage of the smugglers, either.

Constantinou says the customs department has reached out to their colleagues in the north, but that as of now, cooperation remains very limited. Attempts of the Cyprus Mail to find a contact at the north’s customs department for comment have remained unsuccessful.

The same applies to the sometimes absurd, other goods brought over the border illegally. One small shop owner tried to bring over more than ten bags of Persil washing detergent through the Ayios Dhometios checkpoint. And while this might be within the €260 worth of goods permitted to be brought to the south, it clearly indicates the intention to resell them, ultimately making it illegal, the customs say.

But dozens of containers with air conditioning coolant, mentioned above, are just too risky to be brought over through the official crossings.

Some even bring windows and doors, which seem to be much cheaper in the north; however are considered illegal as they lack EU safety certificates.

In regards to tobacco smuggling via airports, it almost seems surprising that airport security checks do not automatically flag suitcases filled with such large amounts of tobacco products. There, another factor facilitating the work of the smugglers comes into play.

The scanning at the airport and the scanning of packages at the postal service are carried out by private companies. These, Constantinou says, primarily check for goods that are of security concern, such as explosives and weapons and only carry out randomised checks.

And while he clarifies that the companies do cooperate with the authorities efficiently, this checking procedure clearly leaves plenty of room for smuggling.

On top of that, coordination with foreign authorities, particularly in the UK, where many cigarettes are “exported” to, adds another layer of complexity. Although information is shared and collaboration exists, the process is lengthy and resource-intensive.

The last, and in no way least significant, factor enabling smugglers to continue with their business is law enforcement itself.

“Many of the cigarette cases result in out-of-court settlements,” Constantinou says.

In a recent case, a 35-year-old was caught attempting to smuggle 70 boxes of cigarettes from Larnaca to Luton, UK, with the case later being settled through the payment of € 2,200.

A pack of cigarettes in the UK currently costs around 16 pounds, almost as much as the whole box of 10 packs if bought in the north.

Given the level of organisation behind many of the “export operations”, with some cases even involving flight tickets that suggest well-travelled routes, a sum of €2,200 starts to seem like a trivial amount for someone working within a system that appears to generate far more substantial returns.

The money from the fines, Constantinou says, goes to the finance ministry.

So how can the issue be addressed?

“To efficiently combat the smuggling, we would need to resolve the Cyprus problem,” Constantinos says.

So, don’t expect a change any time soon.