[pappyone]

“...produced fake vodka and tobacco...”

So what was the crime?

[Niuhuru]

Nothing. Pity he didn’t go to China and build his own business there. Or Thailand or Singapore. Countries that don’t punish big business.

[muawiyah]

Interesting how you make "fake tobacco". Does the EU have a tax for the stuff?

And how common is the practice ~ like can anybody depend on anything in EU anymore if they are able to peddle fake tobacco!

[RobRoy]

>>So what was the crime?<<

He didn’t pay the Don his cut.

[The Free Engineer]

Actually he was producing counterfeit booze and tobacco in addition to not paying taxes on it.

What cracks me up is why someone capable of putting in the level of effort necessary to build an enterprise of this size would need to do it illegally.

The taxes and licensing and regulation are so expensive you can’t have a legitimate go at it and instead risk jail?

Taxes, licensing, and regulation always help protect established producers to the detriment of start ups.

[Vanders9]

Well, for a start off he is undercutting those businesses that DO pay tax, which is hardly very fair on them. Secondly he is calling it "whatever" vodka, tobacco etc, which is potentially a breach of copyrights held by other businesses. Thirdly because he is making it illegally there are no health and safety/quality control measures in force, which means the vodka could be of any strength from 1% to 90% and both it and the "fake" tobacco could contain absolutely anything. Also he won't have any insurance so there's no comeback from any of his customers if he poisons any of them. Finally if he is producing this stuff he will be getting the components from criminal gangs, this being the traditional way that profits from drugs, bank robberies and prostitution is "laundered".

Frankly I find it surprising anyone on FR backs this kind of false capitalism.