Japanese Cigarette Maker Examined by EU

A Japanese cigarette manufacturer is being probed by European Union anti-fraud investigators amid accusations that it smuggled cigarettes to Syria despite sanctions upon that country, EU officials confirmed on Tuesday. "We have an investigation going on. These allegations concern a number of items, among them smuggling," Johan Wullt, a spokesman for the anti-fraud office OLAF, told dpa. He declined to give any more details, including information on how far the investigation into Japan Tobacco Inc (JTI) has progressed. A spokeswoman for the EU‘s executive, the European Commission, noted that the independent OLAF "doesn‘t investigate sanction breaches as such," but would focus on smuggling allegations, "including smuggling that would involve the breaching of sanctions." The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the investigation, reported that JTI‘s Swiss unit stands accused of delivering 450,000 cartons of cigarettes to a firm partly owned by Rami Makhlouf in May 2011 - days after he was black-listed by the EU. The bloc has described him as an associate of Maher al-Assad - a brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - who "bankrolls the regime." The cigarettes financially helped the Syrian regime because they could be resold at a higher price, the Journal quoted Syrian dissidents as saying. They also claimed that the al-Assad regime uses cigarettes to pay its militias. A JTI spokesman denied the accusations, telling the US daily that the company adheres to EU sanctions and is cooperating with the OLAF investigation. dpa eb amh ncs Authors: Dieter Ebeling, Alexandra Mayer-Hohdahl