In the souq of a small Iraqi town, I saw bags of tobacco leaf for sale. But the real attraction for customers was a booth stocked with well-known Western brands, of which I snapped this photo.

How did all these branded cigarettes make their way from the West to Iraq? They didn’t. They are among the more than one hundred billion fake Western brand cigarettes produced each year for the black market. What are the dynamics of the global tobacco black market, and what are its implications for public health, crime and taxation collection?

I answer these questions in my latest piece at Washington Post’s Wonkblog.