As smoking declines across the US and Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa is an increasingly important market for the UK’s seventh biggest company, British American Tobacco. The three winners of the 2021 Blueprint UK Whistleblowing Prize have shown the incredible lengths BAT has gone to in order to maintain its control of tobacco markets in Africa.

In two separate instances of whistleblowing, three people, Paul Hopkins from Kenya, and then Pieter Snyders and Francois van der Westhuizen from South Africa - presented evidence that the giant multinational corporation BAT carried out a consistent campaign of industrial espionage and sabotage against its commercial rivals on the African continent.

These activities were condoned by BAT and often conducted directly from their London headquarters. Under the Bribery Act (2011) British companies can be prosecuted for bribery carried out by their employees or agents anywhere in the world if they fail to take steps to prevent it.

In 2015, Paul Hopkins, who had worked for BAT in Kenya for 13 years, spoke out about how the company would pay off public officials and politicians in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi. Hopkins provided documentary evidence of bribes being paid between 2008 and 2013 for the purposes of limiting public health measures and gathering intelligence on local rivals.

These revelations exposed a pattern of behaviour that was rife across the continent. Researchers at the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Project say they believe that Hopkins was “the most significant tobacco industry whistleblower for decades.”

At the time, the UK authorities appeared to agree. Hopkins’ disclosures led to a long running criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. Nevertheless, that five year investigation was closed this January without any charges being laid. The SFO said there was insufficient evidence to bring a prosecution.

However, this year has seen further allegations emerge about BAT’s activities in South Africa and Zimbabwe.These involve a paid informant network numbering into the hundreds and the planned bribery of public officials and top politicians.

The BBC’s Panorama programme, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London and the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group have covered the story, drawing heavily on the testimony of whistleblowers and documentation provided by them.

Those whistleblowers, Francois van der Westhuizen and Pieter Snyders, are both former employees of private security company Forensic Security Services (FSS), which was contracted by BAT to run the company’s “dirty tricks” campaign in South Africa.

Despite controlling over 70% of the South African domestic tobacco market and an even larger share of domestic production, BAT used private security contractors like FSS, bribes, surveillance and double agents in order to sabotage its smaller local rivals. By 2000 small local tobacco companies were having some success in undercutting the multinational by offering South African customers cheaper cigarettes in small quantities. BAT argued they were only able to do this by avoiding taxation.

BAT approached the South African authorities with a proposal to help them combat tax evasion. The Illicit Tobacco Task Team was formed in 2010. Former employees of the South African Revenue Service have been critical of the Task Team’s practices, and there is no evidence their work led to any tax evasion prosecutions. What can be established though is that the Illicit Tobacco Task Team and the South African State Security Agency, worked closely with BAT’s South African subsidiary and representatives of FSS, the private security company hired by BAT to manage its espionage operation.

Pieter Snyders and Francois van der Westhuizen both had a professional background in South Africa’s police service before going on to work for FSS. Snyders worked for the security company since it was founded in 1999, while Van der Westhuizen joined in 2012.

Van der Westhuizen was initially under the impression that he would be working on a contract for Unilever, but as it turned out, FSS only had one client: British American Tobacco. By the time Van der Westhuizen joined FSS, the BAT contract was worth millions of pounds sterling each year.

The substance of that contract was corporate espionage on an industrial scale. According to the two whistleblowers, FSS managed an informant network of around 200 people, many of whom worked for BAT’s rivals and were paid for information about their employers. Using that information, shipments from BAT’s rivals would be intercepted, ostensibly for tax investigation purposes, but the real reason was to disrupt their businesses.

The root of much of what happened in South Africa lay in BAT’s London headquarters, which ran the FSS contract but also paid informants of their own. This separate network of informants was paid by means that were designed to be untraceable and obscured from official accounts. BAT officials would top up pre-paid Travelex cards at Heathrow Airport with funds that their agents could with withdraw in South Africa. Among the agents handled by BAT in London was Belinda Walter, a lawyer who headed the trade association that represented BAT’s competitors and was being run as a double agent.

FSS issued invoices for their work, which detailed the activities the company’s employees were undertaking and were approved and paid in London. Itemised activities included phone tapping, physical surveillance and bribery, activities that are illegal in both South Africa and the UK. FSS reassured their employees by telling them that the actions were legal, as they were working with South African law enforcement.

Among the specific allegations detailed in the 2021 investigation by BBC Panorama, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the University of Bath concerns BAT and FSS’ activities in Zimbabwe. In November 2012, three directors of the local contractor used by FSS in Zimbabwe had been arrested and charged with spying. This arrest was reported in local press, threatening FSS – and BAT – with publicity that could have proven awkward for their operations elsewhere. Documents show that BAT's private security firm FSS negotiated a large bribe to Zanu PF, the governing party in Zimbabwe, in order to have the three men freed.

BAT’s contract with FSS ended in 2016. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office, which ended a five-year investigation into BAT in January 2021, has confirmed it is aware of the latest allegations. It has not, as yet, been in touch with either of the FSS whistleblowers.