Hong Kong has witnessed a huge rise in cases involving illicit cigarettes, with customs reporting an 80-percent increase in related cases last year, and a 94-percent rise in passengers carrying cigarettes over their duty-free limits.

To step up enforcement efforts, the authority aims to launch a pilot program by the third quarter of next year, which will enable customs officers to identify whether cigarettes have been taxed by scanning labels.

During a local radio program on Friday, Commissioner of Customs and Excise Chan Tsz-tat said that customs seized 1.26 billion illicit cigarettes over the past two years. In 2024, 610 million illicit cigarettes were confiscated, which were worth HK$2.7 billion ($345.6 million).

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In 2023, he said, authorities detected over 11,800 cases of illicit cigarettes, a number that surged to more than 21,200 cases last year, with maritime routes the primary channel for smuggled cigarettes.

Customs officials also noticed a significant rise in passengers arriving with cigarettes exceeding their duty-free limits, with approximately 9,800 passengers found in 2023 carrying such cigarettes, a figure that skyrocketed to over 19,000 cases last year, marking a 94-percent increase.

Chan linked the case increase to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government hiking tobacco taxes, which has boosted potential profits from illicit cigarettes.

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In a historic move, the government increased tobacco taxes by about 30 percent in both 2023 and 2024.

During the program, Chan also revealed that consultancy research on the tax-paid cigarette labeling system is nearing completion.

He said the intention is to include a label on tax-paid cigarette packaging that incorporates anti-counterfeiting features, enabling customs to identify whether the cigarettes are tax-paid through scanning.

Chan also pledged to apply technologies to crack down on new drugs like “space oil”, which were incorporated into e-cigarettes in some cases.

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Last year, customs seized 23.5 kilograms of Etomidate, raw materials for the drug “space oil”, with the majority being sent to Hong Kong via express delivery.

According to Chan, frontline customs officers will use analytical instruments to detect such drugs. The department is collaborating with relevant equipment companies to input the unique spectrum of this drug into the database to make detection easier.