OREANDA-NEWS. July 04, 2014. Illegal cigarettes made up 18.6 percent of the market last year, down by 1.1 percentage points compared to 2012, a KPMG study shows.  

Latvia (28.8 percent), Lithuania (27.1) and Ireland (21.1) were the only EU states higher than Estonia in the table.

The EU's average was 10.5 percent, which was slightly lower than a year ago. The total of close to 60 billion illegal smokes purchased in the EU in 2013 translates into around 11 billion euros in unpaid tax.

Most of the contraband cigarettes in Estonia hail from Russia or Belarus, and around half are produced solely for the illegal market.