Take a punt (bet) on the % of Cuban fakes in your part of the world.

[El Presidente]

I wrote the below for todays 24:24

"I wonder if there are any studies on the introduction of new bands/packaging on the fake market. I was once told that it was estimated the fake Cuban cigar market constituted approximately 70 million cigars a year. That goes close to equalling Habanos S.A’s total production.

The number sounds high until you spend a little bit of time travelling Central and South America, Asia and the USA.  In the first two locales I would put fakes at 90%, The US 50% + and Asia …well it is a big area. Some places 90%, others 10%. It would be interesting to hear people’s opinions about Eastern Europe, Africa, Middle East. I will put a thread up to get member input"

Let us know your experience with Cuban fakes where you live or on your personal travels.  Have a punt at the % as well (in your area/s).  

[BuzzArd]

I got my first fakes as a youth in Austin TX, probably about 2001. Well, not so much a youth as a total noob...  Yep.  I scored a "barberpole" box of limited edition cohiba and a (probably poorly done, I don't remember them) box of Monte 2 for a pal, $150 for each box, down from $300 each box.   I swung quite a deal!!  Mine smelled like a cat toilet, but I sure didn't know any better....  When I realized they where fakes some months later (after some online research) I was embarrassed and never even tried to smoke one.....    Kept them for a couple of years in a tupperware cupcake container.  

My boss brought me these "Cubans" last year after a trip to Jamaica.  This, after I'd been fairly involved in the real thing for several years at that point.   Same horrid smell...  and he was so pleased with himself, what could I say?   Gave me 4, gave another coworker four and kept four for himself.   Only set him back $250.... ?

 

Saw a slar of "rare Behike" in a cigar shop in Albuquerque.  The shop mgr was pretty pleased to secretly call a good customer over to view the box he'd acquired  NOT a Behike box at all   Was a regular dress box of obvious fakes.    The customer gleefully handed over a fistful of cash for 4-5 sticks.  

Don't really see it too often, but I'll bet 10% of whats floating around that I've been able to see are bogus....   but then again, I don't hang around in spots where someone's liable to try to fool me on fugazi Cubans either....

[vladdraq]

Which fakes Presidente? Cuban beach cigars, meaning bought in Cuba and mostly rolled with short filler scraps or non cuban tobacco rolled with long fillers sold as cuban cigar over the net?

 

[oakalley]

First time was a trip to Mexico back in the early 80's. Took a group to Cozumel for a scuba check out trip. Back then, Cozumel was a lot less developed. We bought a few "Cubans" at a small Cigar Store/grocery. I was pretty much a greenhorn cigar smoker back then, but even I with no experience realized how horrible they were!! I smoked one or two and threw the rest away. Every time we go to Cozumel or Cancun, we get assaulted by the "beach boys" selling fake Cubans.


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[PapaDisco]

I offered a cigar (one of El Pres') to a fellow I met in my club here in San Francisco, and he eyeballed it and exclaimed, "Hey!  A real one!" with some excitement; which caused me to inquire what he did for a living.  He explained that he was part of an advisory project for the U.S. Customs Service designed to determine how many of the "Cuban" cigars they confiscated were real.  He said that they'd determined about 80% of seized "Cubans" shipped into the U.S. were fakes.  Seemed like a legit guy to me.  

[shlomo]

Shops here won't risk selling fakes in the open. I'd go as low as 5-10% fakes in shop humidors.

Backdoor dealings, craigslist, saving boxes for "good customers", etc...that % jumps up to 75-90%. No basis, just what I see. Too many people travel to Cuba here regularly and are easily fooled, or simply don't care.

[Fuzz]

After you gave me that fake CoRo and PSD4 you picked up in Kings Cross, and with the ever increasing tobacco tax here, I'd say the fake market in Aus is 60%. Have seen a few fakes in B&Ms, especially in the city.

[kuma]

I'm in states most of the year except during vacation time in spring w/wife.  Destinations are Japan about every other

year.  Don't think the shops I go to sell many fakes.  I guess they get the cigars from PCC jus a guess.  Only problem w/Japan

is the smokes are very high in cost.  I bring the ones I get from Rob to Japan.  When in Spain, France, Italy, Monaco

I make a bee line to the places I know are legit.  Not saying that I have never been fooled but I would be hard

pressed to know it.  Now the states are a different pickle.  Have a guy that owns a cigar shop sells a lot of Nic.'s Dom.'s.

But he has his special stash where he keeeps the Cubans.  And at first In my begining years I thought his were legit

Cubans.  But then things started not to add up.  Like the boxes would have stamps on the bottom from the 1990's.

Or you could only get Gord.'s and above in size, not petit anything and only one corona (you guessed it, Monty. #4).

Then one day I asked him where the hell where these coming from and he said "Miami" boom that told me everything.

Opened one up (Cohiba) just before I stopped going there and what it looked to me was short filler with a lot

of stems and twigs.  So I guess when in Roma do as the Roma.'s do and when in the states stick to

the high end Nic.'s and Dom.'s etc, etc,....and life will smell better and your wallet won't feel lighter!

Percent of fakes I have come across in states 95%.  Europe = 5% or less, Japan = 0%.

 

 

 

[DnQuijote]

I'm in Tijuana, Mexico, I say Cuban cigars sold in Mexico are 95% fake.


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[oliverdst]

Brazil 80-90%

Many stores "recharge" the original box with fakes.

[Bartolomeo]

I started this journey back in August 2009 when my old man bought a box of fake Cohiba where he lives in South Florida, I posted them online and was soon "educated" on why they were fake....this led me to learn as much as I could about Habanos moving forward

South Florida...lots of fakes, big business

Los Angeles....lots of fakes due to location next to Mexico, lots of cigar stores selling Habanos in the back room then those guys posting pics on IG of their recent pick ups, seen more shops here than in Florida selling the fake Habanos

Cuba...not the real factory cigars but still Cuban tobacco fakes being peddled by everyone and their cousin and I don't blame them, they are trying to survive compared to the fakes in America being sold, which the sellers are all about the greed IMHO 

In everyday life here in North Carolina, I would say 65% fakes from friends coming back from Mexico, Caribbean, etc vacations are what they are showing me, they have no idea and most could care less if they are fake or not but it's a large % of fakes coming home w tourists

Bart

[OZCUBAN]

Going on my knowledge 0% Cos I buy from you ?

I thought it was just an American paranoid thing (no offense) ?

[chris12381]

Most stores in my neck of the woods in northern California won't even stock them for good customers. I've only found one store that offered me Cuban cigars in the States "in the back" and it was only after we got to discussing Cuba, it's history and when he told me he was from a small town called San José de las Lajas, I was happy to show him photos I had taken of the town on my roadtrip to Santiago. Definitely required me to be in a circle of trust to be let into this ante room. Not a fake to be seen, most stock was aged at least 5 years and quite a bit of it was stuff I had never seen before.

I think I need to go back there...

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[Connoisseur Kim]

Those who want to buy Cuban cigars online, please use trustworthy website like FOH and stay away from any suspicious dealers.

 

On offline, make sure that you buy cigars in legitmate cigar shops (can be difficult in some countries) instead of gray/black market area.

 

One more thing to say. Please check the cigars carefully and judge whether they are real or not before making a purchase if you can.

 

I am surprised that fakes are everywhere even in LCDH in South America . Because in Korea, like most of Asian countries, the cigar market is relatively small (growing status despite of tightening regulations such as indoor/outdoor smoking ban) compared to Hong Kong, etc so there are few cigar shops and less chance to see fakes due to the small market size (unless purchasing cigars from random people, purchasing cigars online is strictly restricted according to our law ).

 

P.S. Too bad that you cannot smoke cigars indoor in some cigar shops in Korea because of indoor smoking ban (stricter than Japan, complicated legal matter, some cigar shops like Pierre still allow you to smoke cigars indoor). They also added smoking warning pictures like Australia, UK about few years ago.

 

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[Head83]

I've smoked cigars since my first trip to Iraq in '05.  I will admit that I didn't have a lot of experience in CCs till last year when I finally had easier access to them. In the time in between, I had a good 30 or so "cubans" from many sources around the US and Caribbean.  Knowing what I know now, I have no doubt that 100% of them were fake.  Real Cubans are not readily available in the western world unless you have a trusted and proven source.  CCs are so rare that most people who think they have experience with CCs, actually have never even had one.  

[Fuzz]

15 minutes ago, Head83 said:

Real Cubans are not readily available in the western world unless you have a trusted and proven source.  CCs are so rare that most people who think they have experience with CCs, actually have never even had one.  

I would disagree with that statement. Real Cubans are readily available in the western world.

[Head83]

I have never had a US friend give me a real Cuban.  I have never found one easily in Mexico/Caribbean without searching into highly reputable dealers (LCDH) away from resorts.  CCs are available, you MUST know where to look.  Much easier for euro friends than in the US

[Fuzz]

1 hour ago, Head83 said:

I have never had a US friend give me a real Cuban.  I have never found one easily in Mexico/Caribbean without searching into highly reputable dealers (LCDH) away from resorts.  CCs are available, you MUST know where to look.  Much easier for euro friends than in the US

Then you must educate your US friends.

The term "western world" is pretty loose, depending on the context. Going by cultural meaning, that includes all of Europe, Oceania (former European colonies), and the Americas.

[canadianbeaver]

2 hours ago, Head83 said:

I have never had a US friend give me a real Cuban.  I have never found one easily in Mexico/Caribbean without searching into highly reputable dealers (LCDH) away from resorts.  CCs are available, you MUST know where to look.  Much easier for euro friends than in the US

Ever been to Canada? Nation has LCDH and other Habanos stores coast to coast. 

CB

[jcorona]

I've never seen fakes sold in Israel, it's a highly controlled and regulated market, with one importer/distributer. All b&m's sell authentic cubans. The only fakes I got were ones procured in the US. 

[Fugu]

7 hours ago, Fuzz said:

7 hours ago, Head83 said:

Real Cubans are not readily available in the western world unless you have a trusted and proven source.  CCs are so rare that most people who think they have experience with CCs, actually have never even had one.  

I would disagree with that statement. Real Cubans are readily available in the western world.

US-centric perspective of the "western world"....

And as we are at it - 0% fakes in my neck of the western world.

[Head83]

8 hours ago, Fuzz said:

Then you must educate your US friends.

The term "western world" is pretty loose, depending on the context. Going by cultural meaning, that includes all of Europe, Oceania (former European colonies), and the Americas.

Would west of the Atlantic ocean make you more comfortable in my statement?

[Fuzz]

52 minutes ago, Head83 said:

Would west of the Atlantic ocean make you more comfortable in my statement?

That would be most of the world, depending on whether you keep going west till you reach the other side of the Atlantic.

[Head83]

3 minutes ago, Fuzz said:

That would be most of the world, depending on whether you keep going west till you reach the other side of the Atlantic.

I see what you did there...a good game of stump the chump.  By your reasoning then, why is the middle east considered the middle east?  Couldn't it be called the middle west just as easily depending on how you look at it?    Or why is the far east, the far east when it could be called the far west? The fact is they are referred to as those locations because that is where they sit on the map that we all know and love and has been ultimately accepted by the world.  Not even going to get into the gross errors in size representations of the continents, thats a discussion for another day.  This is off subject of the original post though.  We can always start a different post to discuss the inaccuracies of cartography and how it can all be relevant to where someone is. 

I still stand firm in my statement though, its damn hard to find real CCs with the amount of fakes in the US/Mexico/Caribbean part of the world.  They are so rampant that most folks think they are real cause they have never actually seen the real thing.       

[GrouchoMarx]

I was in phillpsburg, st. martin some time ago. There's an area where the cruise shippers shop - a bunch of little shop. Lots of "cuban cigars" for sale - 100% fake.

No, about 3 blocks away is a REAL cigar shop selling REAL cubans - I got a box of sig5s there.

No idea how that affects percentages. 

As for Canada - no idea. Probably 90+% of people buy their cigars online.