I have a large collection of Cuban cigars (obtained pre Covid when prices were much more reasonable).
European vendors created huge warehouses and shipped the cigars around the world at very reasonable prices.
Since they were illegal in the US that meant there were no sales or excise taxes.
If they were legal in the US the prices would be astronomical and the taxes would be crazy.
Meanwhile Cuba is still a slave state after an eighty year boycott.
.Gov is just a big joke—work around them when the reward exceeds the risk.
Btw I never had a box seized by customs. In one hilarious case I had ordered a less well known name couple of boxes of Cubans. Customs opened up the packed box (from Switzerland) and put green customs tape inside the box and then retaped the box and wrapped green customs tape around it—and forwarded it to me.
Lol.
Kind of useless then to outlaw them.