Safeguard your brand and preserve market share
Protect what you’ve built and earned
Illicit trade is not just a financial threat—it’s a direct assault on your brand, reputation, and bottom line. Inner Valor’s Anti-Illicit Trade strategies provide effective solutions to detect, disrupt, and dismantle unlawful operations that undermine your business. Our expertise helps safeguard your organization from the damaging effects of counterfeit goods, smuggling, and tax evasion—ensuring lasting security and integrity in the marketplace.
Through our proprietary Pressure Point Control Tactics℠ (PPCT℠) service, we uncover vulnerabilities, gather critical intelligence, and exert strategic pressure to dismantle illicit trade networks. By collaborating with legal teams, law enforcement, and regulatory authorities, we have successfully shut down operations threatening our clients’ businesses—recovering hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in market share, restoring industry integrity, and ensuring a level playing field.
Inner Valor empowers businesses with the tools necessary to combat smuggling, counterfeiting, and tax evasion. The foundation of Pressure Point Control Tactics℠ (PPCT℠) is strategic disruption—applying pressure from multiple angles to destabilize illicit operations and make them unsustainable.
Our approach includes:
By disrupting supply chains, pressuring facilitators, and exposing vulnerabilities, Inner Valor creates an unfavorable environment for illicit activity, making it virtually impossible for illegal trade to thrive.
If illicit trade is affecting your business, contact Inner Valor today to discuss customized anti-illicit trade strategies that protect your market position and profitability.
Inner Valor was retained to investigate a major illicit trade case involving the fraudulent use of tax banderols in a rapidly deregulated alcohol market in Eastern Europe. The client—a recently privatized former state-owned spirits monopoly, now owned by a private equity firm—faced sudden and aggressive competition from a new market entrant. Suspicion grew when the Subject Company began undercutting prices below production cost, suggesting large-scale tax evasion and illegal activity.
Inner Valor deployed its proprietary Pressure Point Control Tactics™ (PPCT), focusing on areas most likely to yield actionable evidence, including tax fraud, regulatory violations, environmental damage, labor law infractions, and advertising misconduct. Investigators uncovered over 300 instances of products sold without required tax stamps, fraudulent use of stamps on larger bottles, undeclared sales, and even clandestine production lines. The Subject Company evaded up to 85% of taxes per bottle and dumped toxic waste into nearby rivers, causing public health issues.
Coordinating with organized crime enforcement units, Inner Valor supported the seizure of 4.3 million illicit bottles worth $86 million. Legal action followed: executives were convicted, the company was seized and auctioned, and the country’s Minister of Finance was removed from office.
Within a year, the client recovered market share, recorded record sales, and sold the business at a 5x return on investment. The investigation also revealed links to international organized crime, triggering broader enforcement actions. Inner Valor’s strategic, multi-pronged approach not only dismantled a major criminal operation but also restored a fair marketplace.
A global beverage company commissioned Inner Valor to investigate the scale and structure of illicit alcohol sales in key regions of South Africa. The investigation focused on identifying the types of illicit traders, the products being distributed, and the regional variations in production and consumption. Investigators also assessed the impact of illicit trade on legitimate market share, public health, and tax revenue losses to inform targeted enforcement and policy interventions.
The inquiry confirmed widespread production and sale of illegal alcohol, especially low-cost, wine-flavored beverages made from sugar, water, and yeast rather than grapes. Sold in unbranded plastic jugs, these products were rapidly displacing legitimate brands. Investigators identified unlicensed producers and distributors operating with minimal oversight. Field interviews and forensic intelligence revealed that some offenders— including individuals previously convicted of wine adulteration—were repackaging these drinks with recycled or deceptive labels designed to mimic reputable producers and mislead consumers and retailers alike.
The investigation revealed profiles of illicit producers, their operations, and distribution networks. It also exposed how unregulated, low-cost products distorted the market, outselling mainstream brands and significantly undermining the legitimate share held by established alcohol producers.
The findings were used to inform enforcement strategy, regulatory interventions, and commercial planning. Inner Valor’s intelligence enabled the client to prioritize action against high-risk operators and support broader efforts to restore integrity, safety, and stability to the South African alcohol market. The investigation also laid the groundwork for ongoing monitoring and collaboration with local authorities and industry partners.
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