Authorities seized almost 2,000 cartons of illegal tobacco worth $390,000 in Devonport last month as part of a crackdown that has netted $6.8 million in illicit product across Tasmania in just nine months.
The bust is one of the biggest recent hauls in an operation run jointly by the Department of Health and Tasmania Police.
Total seizures this financial year include more than three million cigarettes, more than 2,100 kgs of loose tobacco and more than 25,500 e-cigarettes.
Authorities have also issued 159 infringement notices since July 1, 2025.
Fake cigarettes that are almost impossible to tell apart from the real thing are also turning up in shops, with some even being sold to legitimate retailers as genuine stock.
Nick Bunker, director of environmental health, said the “near-perfect” counterfeits are becoming harder to spot.
“It is an evolving beast,” he said.
Bunker said a pack of cigarettes costs around 50 cents to produce, while a single stick sells for about a dollar on the black market.
That gap is driving a flood of cheap product into the state.
Commander Damien George from Tasmania Police said the money is going straight to organised crime.
“That money is solely fuelling serious and organised crime and if you want evidence of that look at what has occurred down the eastern seaboard of Australia, where we’ve had extortions, firebombings and murders,” he said.
George said most of the product enters Tasmania through regular transport routes.
He warned the state is not immune to the violence seen on the mainland, even though there has been no evidence of it locally yet.
“Criminals don’t play by the rules that the rest of the community engage in,” he said.
The government introduced the Public Health Amendment (Prohibited Tobacco and Other Products) Bill 2026 to parliament last week.
It would give authorities the power to shut down shops selling illicit tobacco.
Police Minister Felix Ellis said the federal government needed to do “more at the border” and take a closer look at the way tobacco products are taxed and regulated.
“This is the cash cow that organised crime are milking around the country and that is almost unique around the world,” he said.
“These powers are important because we need to be deterring and disrupting the supply chains for illegal tobacco into our community so that we can take action on organised crime.”
