cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/65444444

You can see how much individuals associated with British American Tobacco contributed to campaigns. In 2024 it was over $26 million a vast majority of that going to Republicans. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/british-american-tobacco/summary?id=D000067317 they also spent over $5 million in lobbying in 2024.

Some other notable quotes from the article:

In February 2021, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (OCCRP) published an investigation according to which trafficking of BAT cigarettes had helped finance jihadist and separatist groups in northern Mali using, among other mechanisms, a system of oversupplying the country with tobacco. This has allowed billions of cigarettes to be smuggled out of the country.

In November 2012, the Zimbabwean government arrested several people for spying on factories owned by local tobacco companies, including Pacific Cigarette Company (PCC). BAT’s involvement was suspected but not proven.[76][77][78] Later that month, President Robert Mugabe accused BAT of spying and hijacking PCC trucks to “kill competition”.[79][80][81] In September 2021, a BBC Panorama investigation found evidence that BAT had enlisted Forensic Security Services, a South African Security firm, to sabotage and surveil factories owned by competitors, including PCC. After the spies were arrested, BAT negotiated a bribe so that the government would release them from jail.[82][83]