on the OECD's Project on Harmful Tax Practices, Gibraltar was not included in the OECD's list of uncooperative tax havens. However, in its April 2009 progress report, the OECD listed Gibraltar in the list of jurisdictions that, although committed, had not "substantially implemented" yet the internationally agreed tax standard. Following Gibraltar's signing of 12 additional Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs), as of October 2009, with jurisdictions including the UK, USA and Germany, Gibraltar was listed in the OECD "white list". It is currently listed as "largely compliant" by the OECD's Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes. Along with the Isle of Man and Cyprus, Gibraltar has been used as an international finance centre by the Russian conglomerate Yukos/Menatep. There have been claims that some Gibraltarian motorboats are engaging in drugs and tobacco smuggling. However, since 1996 there has been a law in Gibraltar controlling fast launches licensing their ownership and importation and prohibiting the entry of unlicensed craft into Gibraltar waters. In 2014, inspectors from the EU's fraud office OLAF wrote to the Spanish governments urging an investigation of tobacco smuggling, amid revelations that Gibraltar, with a population of less than 30,000, imported 117 million packets of cigarettes in 2013. In 2015, Spanish authorities broke up a major tobacco smuggling operation, seizing 65,000 packs of cigarettes, five boats, two firearms, communications equipment and €100,000 cash. Authorities estimated the group was smuggling 150,000 packs of contraband tobacco into Spain every week. Military importance Military control of the Strait of Gibraltar has historically been the most important use of Gibraltar, allowing Britain to defend its trade lanes to the East. The British admiral Lord Fisher stated that Gibraltar was one of the five keys that locked the world, together with Dover, Alexandria, Cape of Good Hope and Singapore, all of which have been controlled by Britain at one point. Its military relevance has reduced with the construction in 1953 of the US Naval Station Rota (the biggest Allied base in the area) and with the end of the Cold War, but it is still an important position as more than one quarter of the global maritime traffic transits through the strait every year. Controlling the strait is of vital importance to NATO. The task of controlling the strait has been traditionally assigned by NATO to the UK, but the recent advances that Spain has made in its