In August 2017, former employee and whistleblower Paul Hopkins released internal documents to The Guardian, a British newspaper, claiming British American Tobacco actively made efforts to market and sell its products in unstable, deeply impoverished nations and conflict zones, including Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Iraq. Leaked PowerPoint presentations from 2011 included details of strategies to continue selling black-market cigarettes "in black paper bags" in parts of Somalia controlled by the fundamentalist Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab, plans to develop "a consumer relevant brand portfolio" and "sustainable... volume growth" in South Sudan just two days before the nation gained independence, and the active marketing and growth of the Kent cigarette brand in Iraq and Syria, despite "volatile markets" in the middle of the Iraq War and Syrian Civil War, respectively.
