Ya think the (ha ha ha) "BORDER" might have issues too, prez?
I want to know several things, note I'm not doubting the accuracy of this story.
1. How are North Koreans producing enough tobacco of sufficient quality to pass as Marlboros? North Korea isn't exactly the geographical equivilent of Virgina, Kentucky and the Carolinas. If tobacco doesn't thrive in places like Ohio, Illinois or Minnesota how can it thrive in North Korea?
2. My godparents son in law is a quality assurance supervisor for RJR and the way he's described their operation to me from a product manufacturing perspective I'm very impressed at how cigarettes are mass produced. It's not really that simple to produce two billion packs of smokes.
From printing the cartons and packs, yeah, that's easy to do. Producing cigarette paper, also not difficult. However when you throw in the quality of tobacco with mass market production? That can't be all that easy to replicate.
If all this tobacco is being grown in greenhouses imagine the resources that would be needed to be diverted from a construction, labor and resources standpoint.
It seems like they're spending far too much on the operation compared to the profits they can reap.
Same guy told me that RJR makes a carton of cigarettes for roughly $3.70 or 37 cents a pack. So how much are these knockoffs going for? You can still buy Marlboros in Eastern Europe for $1.something or less.
I don't see how this is tremendously profitable. Oh wait, I'm assuming they pay the workers making cigarettes anything.
LOL