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Smuggling of Cigarettes Makes More Money Annually than that of Drugs – Interpol Head

20 September 2013

700bn cigarettes are sent illegally around the world every year, making smugglers up to $50bn, Ronald Noble, Interpol Secretary General stated on Friday at the session “Shocks Ahead: Bad News and Good News” at the 10th Annual Meeting of YES “Changing Ukraine in a Changing World: Factors of Success” held in Crimea’s Livadia Palace.

“Cigarettes make up the largest proportion of smuggled goods globally. 700bn cigarettes are transported around the world illegally every year – that’s a hundred times the total global population. Organised crime makes much more income from smuggling cigarettes, than illegal drugs. Income from cigarette smuggling is estimated at between $40-50bn,” said the Head of Interpol Head during the discussion “Shocks Ahead: Bad News and Good News”.

According to Mr. Noble, in Ukraine there are 7bn of those 700bn cigarettes selling illegally, every year. How much income is this country losing each year to this illegal trade? Just think about it”, the Interpol General Secretary questioned.

President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė officially opened the 10^th Yalta Annual Meeting on September 20^th. They presented their visions on how to create synergies for Wider Europe.

The 10^th Yalta Annual Meeting will focus on factors of success that create strong, competitive, sustainable and fair countries and societies. Among the topics will be the global economy, energy security, threats and innovations transforming our lives, as well as successful leadership approaches. Special attention will be paid to the future of Wider Europe and Ukraine’s cooperation and integration perspectives.

Among the speakers are Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden; Stefan Fule, EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy; Kairat Kelimbetov, Vice Prime Minister of Kazakhstan; Leonid Kuchma, President of Ukraine (1994 – 2005); Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of Poland (1995-2005) and Chairman of the Board of YES; Mario Monti, 54th Prime Minister of Italy (2011 – 2012); Ronald Noble, Secretary General Interpol; Gen. David H. Petraeus (US Army, Retired), Director, Central Intelligence Agency (2011 – 2012); Bill Richardson, 30th Governor of New Mexico, 9th United States Secretary of Energy (1998 – 2001); Gerhard Schröder, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1998-2005); Radoslaw Sikorski, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Poland; Javier Solana, EU High Representative for CFSR (1999-2009), member of the Board of YES; and Lamberto Zannier, Secretary General, Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe.

Speakers also include leading businessmen, economists and experts: Daphne Koller, Co-Founder, Co-CEO, Coursera; Pascal Lamy, former Director General, WTO (2005 – 2013); Nouriel Roubini, Professor, Stern School of Business, New York University; Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University; Michio Kaku, physicist and futurist; Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (2007-2011); Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial Times; Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank (2007-2012); and others.

In addition to President Yanukovych, Ukraine is represented by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, Yuriy Boyko, Vice Prime Minister; and Leonid Kozhara, Minister for Foreign Affairs, among others.

Chrystia Freeland, Fellow, Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto and former Editor of Consumer News, Thomson Reuters (2013), will moderate panel discussions on September 20^th; Stephen Sackur, journalist and Host of HARDtalk, BBC, will moderate on September 21^st.

The 10th Yalta Annual Meeting is streamed live at korrespondent.net and
yes-ukraine.org in English and Ukrainian on September 20^th and 21^st.

Live Webcasts will also be available on the websites of ICTV (ictv.ua), Channel 5 (5.ua), «Kommersant» newspaper (kommersant.ua), as well as the online edition of "Ukrainska Pravda» (pravda.com.ua).

The official Twitter of the 10th Yalta Annual Meeting: @yes_ukraine, hashtag: #yalta2013

Special Partners of the 10^th Yalta Annual Meeting include:

DTEK
ALFA-BANK (UKRAINE)
Partners of the 10^th Yalta Annual Meeting are:

Shell

Smart-Holding

DCH

Visa Inc.

International Renaissance Foundation

State Agency for Investment and National projects of Ukraine

Media-partners:

Euronews

Korrespondent
Korrespondent.net

ICTV
ERA FM

Yalta European Strategy (YES) is the largest social institution of public diplomacy in Eastern Europe, providing an open and equal dialogue on global issues affecting the European Union, Ukraine, Russia and other countries. This non-partisan organisation was established in 2004 by the Ukrainian businessman and public figure Victor Pinchuk.

The YES Annual Meetings held in Yalta’s Livadia Palace have become an open platform to discuss and look for new ideas and views on paths to European, Ukrainian and global development. Every year these meetings bring together over 200 politicians, diplomats, statesmen, journalists, analysts and business leaders from more than 20 countries. The dialogue on global challenges broadens the vision on the situation inside Ukraine and the prospects for the country’s development in the modern world. It is also an incentive to find common ground between countries, common interests and values.

At the YES Annual Meetings the world's top opinion leaders present their visions of current and future trends which impact all spheres of life of society. In 2010, 2011 and 2012 the events were opened by Presidents Viktor Yanukovych, Bronislaw Komorowski, Shimon Peres and Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. YES Annual Meetings key speakers have included Mykola Azarov, Kofi Annan, Egemen Bagis, Carl Bildt, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Richard Branson, James Wolfensohn, Newt Gingrich, Robert Zoellick, Bill Clinton, Paul Krugman, Leonid Kuchma, Yuri Milner, Condoleezza Rice, Lawrence Summers,
Radoslaw Sikorski, Javier Solana, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Shashi Tharoor, Strobe Talbott, Niall Ferguson, Joschka Fischer, Stefan Fule, Gerhard Schroeder, Muhammad Yunus and many others.

Official website: www.yes-ukraine.org

Victor Pinchuk Foundation is an international, private and non-partisan philanthropic foundation based in Ukraine. It was established in 2006 by businessman and public figure Victor Pinchuk. Its goal is to empower future generations to become the change-makers of tomorrow. To achieve this, projects are developed and partnerships are built in Ukraine and worldwide.

in people, to boost human capital;
in society, to promote social responsibility;
in the world, to foster a more integrated world.

The projects of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation include, among others: the network of neonatal centers Cradles of Hope, the largest private scholarship programme in Ukraine, Zavtra.UA, the WorldWideStudies scholarship programme for Ukrainian students studying abroad, the centre for contemporary art PinchukArtCentre with its biannual prizes Future Generation Art Prize and PinchukArtCentre Prize. The foundation also hosts the Davos Philanthropic Roundtable and Davos Ukrainian Lunch organized each year at the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum and supports the international network YES (Yalta European Strategy) to foster Ukraine’s European and global integration, as well as a startup online platform for fostering philanthropy in Ukraine, the Philanthropic Marketplace. The Foundation is a member of the European Foundation Centre and the Ukrainian Grantmakers Forum. It cooperates with the Clinton Global Initiative, the Brookings Institution, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Peres Center for Peace, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, and other nongovernmental organizations.

Official website: pinchukfund.org

Contact information for Media enquiries:

[email protected]

Tel.: +380 44 494 11 48

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