Apparatus and method for detection and segregation of faulty cigarettes in a production/packaging installation for cigarettes having an apparatus by means of which faulty cigarettes are segregated from the conveyed sequence of cigarettes, wherein the apparatus and method use a generator and evaluation circuits for radio-frequency electromagnetic fields and use a sensor past whose end surface the ends of the cigarettes are passed and which applies the radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to the end surface of the sensor, whose size corresponds approximately to the size of the end surface of the cigarettes, with the changes in the electromagnetic fields as a cigarette passes being evaluated.