Investigators working for the tobacco industry rummaged through litter bins for fag packets to assess the scale of the black market and found that about one third of packets contained fakes or cigarettes brought in by smugglers.
The survey in Birmingham by MS Intelligence, a Swiss-based brand protection company, found that 30.9 per cent of packets were either bogus or purchased abroad, the Daily Mail reported.
The UK Border Agency has intercepted items containing asbestos, mould and human excrement.
A haul in Derbyshire found cigarettes made from the remains of crushed flies.
Analysts collected 13,000 packets in Birmingham between April 3 and May 11.
Most of the bogus brands uncovered originated from the Far East, predominantly from China.
An MS Intelligence report on the investigation - codenamed Operation EDPC - concludes that criminals have changed tactics.
It warns of a rise in the number of 'illicit whites', which are cigarettes manufactured for the sole purpose of being smuggled into and sold illegally in another market, avoiding tax.
One of the most popular 'whites' found in the Birmingham sweep was Jin Ling - a cigarette which has enjoyed staggering under-the-counter success.
In 2006, they were only found in Poland and neighbouring nations, but now they are present in at least 16 EU countries.
Former Scotland Yard detective Will O'Reilly, currently carrying out research for tobacco giant Philip Morris International, said organised criminals were increasingly turning from peddling hard drugs to tobacco.
"Bring a container of cigarettes into this country and you're talking a 1.5 million pounds profit," O'Reilly was quoted as saying by the paper.
"Organised crime is all over it. After a number of years in decline, there has been a sharp rise in illicit cigarettes," O'Reilly added.
