Illegal tobacco increasingly hard to spot, with some fakes featuring Australian health warnings

Government warned that counterfeit tobacco produced by criminal organisations in south-east Asia is becoming more sophisticated

The black-market tobacco trade continues to thrive as sellers turn to counterfeit packaging to skirt bans, prompting calls for the urgent passing of tougher laws.

Factories owned and operated by criminal syndicates, primarily based in Cambodia, are pumping out increasingly sophisticated fake products that replicate common brands.

The production has prompted the customs minister, Julian Hill, to urge parliament to pass tough laws as soon as possible.

But Hill was concerned the sophisticated overseas production of cigarettes was becoming increasingly hard to detect or stop.

Several states and territories have been cracking down on enforcement measures, including blitzes of black-market shopfronts. Queensland has taken the hardest line and legal cigarette sales have grown as a result.

Across just two days on 6 and 7 October, NSW health inspectors seized 420,000 illegal cigarettes, about 60kg of loose-leaf tobacco and thousands of illicit vapes – small numbers compared with the 2.4 tonnes of tobacco confiscated since the start of the year.