Posted on 11/05/2009 7:47:43 PM PST by elkfersupper
FALLS CHURCH, Va. — Fourteen people have been charged with illegally purchasing 77 million contraband cigarettes from undercover agents in Virginia and smuggling the cigarettes to New York.
Two are also accused of paying an agent posing as a hit man to kill a husband and wife whom they believed had stolen from them.
The indictments handed up Thursday in federal court in Alexandria are the culmination of a yearlong investigation.
Authorities say the smuggling ring paid $8 million plus guns and drugs to the undercover agents for the cigarettes.
Cigarette smuggling has increased in recent years as high taxes in New York and elsewhere have made the crime more profitable.
The defendants lived in Virginia, Maryland, New York and the District of Columbia.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Ping.
A lot of smugglers would not exist if not for high taxation and nanny state laws.
One day I had too much time on my hands and I measured a freind’s pack of cigarettes. I calculated how many packs would fit in a semi-truck van (8’w x 48’L x 9’h), then multiplied by $5/pack. It was in the millions! Truck-jacking could be real profitable.
100% profit in Obamatimes makes it worth the effort (and gamble)
We could get rid of these smugglers if we would just legalize tobacco.......
Pretty much.
Fall’s Church. This is most likely a Muslim operation financing Hizballah.
(snicker)
That’s why the “let’s tax marijuana and drive the traffickers out of business” argument is such an utter farce.
I’m not getting something here. 77 million cigarettes divided by 8 million dollars equals $9.63 per cigarette.
What am I missing here?
We can thank our government for creating a black market where there wasn't one before and where the profits will be able to fund all sorts of nefarious activities. Wonder if the cigarettes themselves are coming from the Middle East? I was buying Marlboros for $10 a carton in Dubai just a couple of years ago. They're even cheaper in other countries.
You’ve got the wrong thing in the denominator. The way you have it is 9.63 cigs per dollar.
What am I missing here?
By my calculations $8 mil divided by 77 million cigarettes equals $0.10 per cigarette or $2/pack. How much is a pack of smokes going for in new York these days?
It should be 8 mm dollars divided by 77 mm cigarettes. Thats about 10 cents a smoke.
Tobacco taxes are out of control and indicative of what the Government will do to taxation of Marijuana.
Where we had next to nothing in tobacco smugglers ten years ago, look where we are now. All due to taxes and the nanny state.
Holy cow, I’m an idiot!! Many people on this site have long suspected this. Suspicions confirmed!
I divided 77 mil by 8 mil instead of vice-versa.
Smuggle a truck, just rent one from U-Haul. Very simple...but when you have 13 people working with you...it’s not so easy to keep a secret.
Public school math?
I’d love to see the figures on tobacco-tax revenues since April’s “for the children” tax hike. I’ll bet anything they’ve gone down dramatically.
I know they haven’t gotten a dime out of me since the increase. And I had a pack-a-day American Spirit habit.
77,000,000 cigarettes/200 cigarettes per carton = 385,000 cartons.
$8,000,000/385,000 cartons = $20.78/carton.
You can buy Winstons in SC for $32.00 and sell them for $80 or so in MA or NY. Don’t have to be a genius to see the potential. Especially if the smokes are stolen.
Yeah, but also 68 and going downhill fast!
Yeah. It's about half that in the provinces of Philippines.
It's about $5/pack in the People's Republic of California. I think it's more than double that in New York.
That’s absolutely correct. That’s why I’d rather keep it illegal than give these monsters the power to tax it. Tobacco is the case in point.
A Muslim “Charity” ???
Cannabis extracts far stronger than anything sold today were made by companies such as Bristol and Merck. Before the “tax” took effect in 1937, over 60 cannabis-based formulas were registered. This is only mentioned in medical literature before it was scrubbed in the 1960s.
Even the US government made pro-cannabis films and literature in the 1930s and 40s. It was flatly denied until a quiet 1989 investigation forced the Library of Congress to acknowledge them.
No bans or sky-high taxes = no competition from illegal sales = no money for criminals
Down at my corner store here in Queens, NY a pack of Marlboros is $9.00 and it’s a bargain.
Ouch!
Would you rather support me in jail because I like my Marlboro cigarettes, or would you rather have me as an employed taxpayer?
Your kind makes me want to puke.
I was talking about pot, you goof. Try following the conversation.
Not to mention that once the tax got too high on pot folks would simply grow their own!
Bingo! That’s when doors start getting kicked in. When the government is protecting their revenue source.
That’s why I’d rather it stay illegal. I fear the government a hell of a lot more than I’ll ever fear any cartel.
A guy could make a bucket load of cash in a short period of time!
i’m told that those aren’t the same as the us branded ones. i seriously considered smuggling the things when i lived in new jersey. pennsylvania was a two hour drive, marlboros were $25.00 a carton, and easily sold in manhattan for $50. you could sell 50 cartons in less than an hour at the right bars.
The day our government started banning a simple plant was the day we took a giant leap towards tyranny. My only problem with the medicinal argument is that it’s entirely unnecessary. Even if marijuana does nothing but give the user a buzz, government has no business telling a free people whether or not they can grow it. I do believe society has the right to restrict it commercially, but every man should be free to grow it and use it however he chooses.
They're a little different. Foreign branded Marlboro Reds (and it doesn't matter what country I've purchased them, they're all the same) are a little longer. They come a hardpack but are about as long as a softpack Marlboro King. They're just a little milder too, about as strong as a Marlboro Medium.
I smoked carton after carton of these foreign Marlboros while on my last navy cruise and I grew to prefer them. Stateside, I smoke Marlboro Mediums. U.S. Reds are just too strong.
That 77 million cigarettes comes to about 14 manufacturing size skids. Not so impressive when looked at that way.
Ditto! The higher the taxes, the more theft of that tax money by elected officials and their cohorts.
John Hancock was a smuggler.
Meanwhile the other several billion cigarettes that got through are being sold at record profits. The black market hails the Fed and thanks them for this unexpected bonus. Keep raising those taxes, boys!
Smoking the raw plant is the lowest form of its medical potential. With only a decade or so of real research in the early 20th century, the old drug companies made highly effective and 100% safe formulas.
The compounds in cannabis are highly symbiotic to most plant-eating animals, especially mammals. Our bodies have nerve receptors all over the body specifically designed for them. Since the hemp seed was a highly nutritious, energy rich and ubiquitous plant it is believed animals adapted to use them. Much like animals adapted to use vitamins and minerals provided by plants.
With over 400 unresearched highly symbiotic compounds and modern technology, the possibilities are endless. The only reason we mock the medical community is that the emperor (US gov’t) refuses to admit it has no clothes and an industry makes billions holding up this farce.
Look - I just smoke a lot, okay?
Smoke much?
I agree with you about smuggling. When the government is in such complete control that you have to do what they tell you without any assent on your part, they can be a lot more totalitarian. If they know their demands must be viewed by most people as at least semi-legitimate or the people may choose non-compliance, they have to put on their nice face, so it benefits everyone. Tax compliance the same way.
Organized crime has been into cigarette smuggling (also called "bootlegging") for years. Ditto Islamic criminal gangs with connections to Islamofascist terrorists.
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