Not long after, Juan opened a tobacco shop, just as it existed back in Spain, with the intent of providing the soldiers there with snuff.

When Emmanuel (one of Juan's sons) died in 1920, the members of the family sold their shares, which were bought immediately by the Hoskier Bank.

After World War II and the Algerian War, in which Algeria became independent, the Bastos house moved their operations to Cameroon, Louiseville (Canada), Bastia (France), Dakar (Senegal), Switzerland, Saigon (Vietnam) and, together with Job (another one of Juan's sons), a factory was built near Ajaccio (France).

[6][7] Bastos was or still is sold in the following countries: Netherlands, West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Spain, Hungary, Madagascar, Laos and Vietnam.

[8] In Captain Conan, Lieutenant Norbert (the narrator of the novel) offers some Bastos cigarettes to a Dubreuil military priest in the year following the end of World War I.