Tabacalera del Este, also referred to as Tabesa, is

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

's largest cigarette manufacturer. It was bought by

Horacio Cartes Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara (born 5 July 1956) is a Paraguayan businessman and politician who served as the president of Paraguay from 2013 to 2018. He is a member of the Colorado Party. Cartes owns about two dozen businesses in his Grupo Cart ...

and is part of the president's business empire ( Grupo Cartes).

History

According to the company's website, Tabesa was established in 1994 at Hernandárias,

Alto Paraná The musical term alto, meaning "high" in Italian (Latin: ''altus''), historically refers to the contrapuntal part higher than the tenor and its associated vocal range. In 4-part voice leading alto is the second-highest part, sung in choruses by ...

by Horacio Cartes, Jose Angel Avalos, Marcelino Zarate Riquelme, Pedro Knight and Cesar Cabral. Brands include Palermo, TE, San Marino and Kentucky. The company is said to employ 1,150 and to have taken half the marketplace from

Marlboro Marlboro (, ) is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA (a branch of Altria) within the United States and by Philip Morris International (now separate from Altria) outside the US. The largest Marl ...

which previously dominated. The Palermo brand is sold in some part of the U.S.

Cigarette smuggling

According to a 2009 report from the

Center for Public Integrity The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) is an American nonprofit investigative journalism organization whose stated mission is "to reveal abuses of power, corruption and dereliction of duty by powerful public and private institutions in order to c ...

, the company's products are widely sold in part of a vast

cigarette smuggling The illicit cigarette trade is defined as “the production, import, export, purchase, sale, or possession of tobacco goods which fail to comply with legislation” (FATF 2012). Illicit cigarette trade activities fall under 3 categories: # Cont ...

operation into Brazil and Argentina. Roque Fabiano Silveira is the most famous person associated with the smuggling business.http://www.publicintegrity.org/2009/06/29/6343/smuggling-made-easySmuggling made easy

References

{{Reflist

External links

Tabacalera del Este company website
Companies of Paraguay Paraguayan brands