Nearly three million contraband cigarettes seized by Canadian and U.S. authorities

Saturday, May 16, 2009

On Friday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) seized 1.75 million contraband cigarettes near the Manitoba - Ontario border and in a separate case the New York City Police Department (NYPD) also had a major recovery of 1.17 million cigarettes.

Canadian officers seized 150 cases of illegal, unmarked cigarettes, as well as 25 cases of "discount" brand cigarettes during a traffic safety check conducted during National Road Safety Week on the Trans Canada Highway.

The NYPD pulled over a U-Haul truck for a traffic violation, a covered license plate and recovered 58,500 packs of untaxed contraband cigarettes.

"It's an ongoing problem as the price of cigarettes go up. Obviously, it increases the motivation to go to other states to buy them and bring them back here. We enforce the law in that regard," said a NYPD Police Commissioner.

"Discount brands of cigarettes ... come from countries such as, not only the United States, but India, Native American tribes, the Philippines, Colombia, Mexico and other countries around the globe," said a representative from the American State Auditor’s Office.

Bootleggers, nicknamed the $5 man, are the new entrepreneurs when taxed cigarettes sell for over US$10 a pack and nearly $100 a carton in some places in the U.S.

Customers satisfying a nicotine addiction provide a hefty income for illegal tobacco traders. The illicit smuggling of tobacco results in thousands of dollars in lost tax revenue to governments. In Manitoba's bust, it's estimated that nearly CA$325,000 (US$275,000)are lost in tax revenue from illegal cigarette sales.

On Wednesday, 90,000 contraband cigarettes were seized from Lithuanian travellers at the Dublin Ireland airport. On Monday, in a separate case, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) seized unmarked cigarettes from a Manitoba man for the second time. This time police recovered 160,000 cigarettes. One week ago smugglers hid 3,000 cases of illegal cigarettes in concrete to try to get them through customs in Singapore.

In April American officials shut down a warehouse containing about US20 million dollars in illegal cigarettes.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

AP. "NYPD Traffic Stop Nets Cartons Of Untaxed Smokes" — CBS Broadcasting Inc., May 15, 2009
"Roadside bust nets nearly 2 million illegal cigarettes" — CBC News, May 15, 2009
Rocco Parascandola. "Traffic stop leads to untaxed cigarette bust" — Newsday, May 15, 2009
"RCMP find $400,000 worth of cigarettes in truck" — Winnipeg Free Press, May 15, 2009
Chris Kitching. "Man charged with moving contraband cigarettes" — Sun Media, May 11, 2009
"90000 contraband cigarettes seized in Dublin" — Belfast Telegraph, May 13, 2009
Lau Joon-Nie. "Authorities find contraband cigarettes hidden in concrete slabs" — Channel News Asia, May 8, 2009
Stephen Koranda. "Officials Secure $20 Million in Contraband Tobacco" — MPB, April 15, 2009

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License