An automated intelligence system that tracks, qualifies and documents the online sale of illicit cigarettes in Romania — method, channels, tools.
Illicit tobacco is breaking records in Romania — and a growing share is now sold and promoted online: marketplaces, Facebook groups, messaging apps.
Two stages. The first casts wide and misses nothing. The second understands context — including the coded language sellers invent to fool moderation.
"Vând bomboane, 165 RON, cash on delivery, details in private"
"candy" = code for cigarettes. A sale, cash on delivery, redirect to private messaging. Case retained.
Real case · Facebook group "tigari ieftine". No keyword script would have linked "candy" to "cigarettes".
Tobacco is banned from official storefronts. Sellers migrate to classifieds, Telegram, and above all local Facebook groups — that's where we look.
Every signal feeds a bigger picture: the repeat seller, the cross-platform network, the admissible evidence.
Clusters a seller's listings by phone, handle, outbound link and image hash — revealing recurrence and cross-platform activity.
Illicit signals: missing or foreign tax stamp, non-compliant warnings, banned menthol, "duty-free" claims.
Timestamped capture, SHA-256 fingerprint, custody log — an admissible case file for escalation.
Low → Urgent by quantity, price, provenance, counterfeit, youth-access — criticals alerted in < 24h.
A defensible watch, and action-ready deliverables.
No interaction, no purchase. Public content only.
robots.txt honored, controlled cadence.
Pseudonymization, bounded retention.
Hash + timestamp + custody.
We don't guess
the black market.
We document it.