Comments Shortly after separatist militant groups took northern Mali in 2012, British American Tobacco (BAT) began flooding the West African nation with unbranded packs of cigarettes aided by another large tobacco company and the French-backed Malian state. The smuggled smokes arrive through ports in neighboring Guinea, Togo, and Benin from where they are transported to distribution points inside Mali and moved across the Sahara into Libya, Algeria, and Europe by an assortment of rebel militias, al Qaeda offshoots, and jihadists in a hugely profitable enterpris...