THE SMOKE SMUGGLERS: In the second part of our series, Crime Correspondent CONOR LALLY looks at the role of former republicans and organised crime gangs in the counterfeit cigarette industry

WHEN GARDAÍ and Customs officers staged a major raid on suspected cigarette smugglers in Monaghan last November they found something there weren’t expecting.

Instead of the usual large boxes of cigarettes – either fake imports or legitimately produced smokes on which import duties had not been paid – the authorities found evidence of a very sophisticated operation.

A search of a truck parked in a yard in smuggling country near Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, yielded enough tobacco, cigarette paper, filters and packaging for 12 million cigarettes.

“It would have been processed into finished packets of smokes at an illegal processing plant somewhere along the Border; that’s how sophisticated the smugglers are now,” said one well-placed source.

The haul, which was valued at €5 million and has been traced back to a Danish port, had entered the Republic by car ferry from Holyhead.

Customs officers checked the container freight using an X-ray scanner at Dublin Port. The X-rays showed that whatever was in the 40ft container was not the paper products mentioned in the shipping documents.

The container was placed under surveillance, and after being collected at the port by a truck driver, was followed to the townland of Creevy, near Carrickmacross, where it was due to be collected by those behind the smuggling operation.

They obviously suspected the authorities were on to them and didn’t turn up to receive the drop; the truck’s lucrative cargo was left to the Garda and Customs team.

The lorry driver was questioned and released. There wasn’t any evidence to identify the borderlands gang behind the haul.

A massive shipment had been taken off the streets, but nobody was caught. It’s a familiar pattern in the booming and expanding cigarette smuggling trade, which cost the exchequer €400 million last year in taxes and duties forgone.

Senior gardaí who spoke to The Irish Times said that during the Troubles the contraband and counterfeit cigarette trade was dominated by the Provisional IRA. Many of those involved were based in Co Louth, across the Border in South Armagh, and at a number of other locations along the Border.

The proceeds of the trade – and that of diesel laundering and smuggling, which the Provisional IRA also specialised in – mainly went to “the movement”.

“At the height of it they weren’t only funding a terrorist campaign both here and in Britain – they also had to find money to look after their people, prisoners’ families and so on,” said one Garda source.

The same source said while republicans were responsible for sourcing and importing the cigarettes, they worked with “ordinary decent criminals” in the distribution of the contraband around the country.

“You had drivers delivering the stuff to places like markets in towns and villages, to street dealers mainly in Dublin and the other cities, and to shops that would take them and sell them,” said another source.

Senior officers familiar with the trade say since the disbandment of the Provisional IRA, many former members who had organised the cigarette smuggling, and those criminals they had worked with, continue to dominate the illegal trade, working purely for personal gain.

“Some of the drugs gangs are involved, but we still pretty much see a separation between what you could define as smugglers on the one hand and what the media calls gangland,” said a Garda source.

A number of former members of the Provisional IRA based in Co Louth who are now centrally involved in the Real IRA were heavily involved in cigarette smuggling for years, and remain so.

When haulier Ciarán Smyth was shot dead aged 39 in Co Louth in 2001, it emerged he was a key player in the cigarette smuggling trade, who worked with the Real IRA.

The Provisional IRA’s alleged former chief of staff, Thomas “Slab” Murphy, has also been linked to cigarette smuggling. A large quantity of cigarettes was found on his lands during a major Garda raid in March 2006.

The former Provisional IRA men, current Real IRA members and the “ordinary decent criminals” they work with have built an impressive network of contacts internationally – from the US to Eastern Europe and the Far East – from whom they source massive shipments of cigarettes.

The 120 million cigarettes, valued at €50 million, seized in Greenore port in Co Louth last October, for example, have been traced to the Philippines. A criminal syndicate of formerly active republicans and “smuggler criminals” around the Border was behind the haul.

Some gangland figures hit by the recession, mainly due to the falling demand for cocaine from recreational users, have begun to smuggle cigarettes, though the diversification is still in its infancy.

The same small number of gangs has also become involved in growing cannabis plants in industrial-sized growing facilities, a number of which have been found by gardaí in recent months in Meath, Donegal and Wicklow.

“They’re looking to get into anything to make a few extra quid now that the cocaine market has fallen very flat,” said one Garda source.

The Keane gang in Limerick has long been involved in smuggled cigarettes and have had some consignments seized from them.

Some cases taken by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) in recent years offer an insight into the wealth that has been amassed by some smugglers.

Last month, Barry O’Brien of Oaktate, Stonetown, Carrickmacross Road, Dundalk, had three houses and €70,000 in cash seized by the Cab. He was also unable to explain the source of almost €300,000 that had gone through one of his bank accounts. O’Brien was once charged with cigarette smuggling in the North, but fled.

Dublin criminal Noel Duggan (49) became so heavily involved in cigarette smuggling he became known as Mr Kingsize. In 2003, the Cab confiscated a five-storey apartment and retail block owned by him that was valued at €4 million.

The Cab presented him with a demand for €4 million in respect of unpaid taxes after a three-year investigation revealed he was involved in smuggling and distributing cigarettes around the State.

However, Garda sources say crime gangs and traditional smugglers who want to build considerable wealth would need to import and sell a constant flow of cigarettes.

Sources point out that smugglers have to pay for the cigarettes and their transport to Ireland from their country of origin.

Once they reach Ireland they are sold by the key players to black market wholesalers. They can then be sold on a number of times to middle men before they reach street dealers.

“All those people have to get their cut, and the packs of 20 only sell on the streets for half the price of genuine cigarettes, so every pack is being sold for peanuts by the guys at the top of the chain here,” said one source.

Another source points out that drugs gangs have been slow to muscle in on cigarette smuggling because the margin of profit is much smaller than with drugs.

“A packet of 20 cigarettes that sells for around €4 on the streets here can be bought at source overseas for around 50 cent.

“But in South America you can get a kilo of coke for around €800 once you buy in bulk. When you get it to Ireland it’s worth €70,000. You just don’t get that sort of profit in cigarettes.”

Another senior Garda officer offers an interesting view: “The recession means the people going to nightclubs and parties doing lots of cocaine definitely don’t have the same spending power as before. So the drugs trade has been hit very badly.

“But the opposite is happening with the cigarettes. The black market smokes are half the price of the ones sold legitimately in shops, so in the recession that means the demand for them is going to be massive.”

ABU DHABI // The price of a packet of 20 cigarettes should double to about Dh14, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has proposed, to help get people to ditch the habit.

The price increase is just one of a raft of anti-smoking restrictions being considered as part of a new law that will ban smoking in some public and private locations, outlaw tobacco advertising and require more detailed warnings on cigarette packets.

Some details of the legislation were announced this week, but officials were unable to clarify when the changes would take effect.

Dr Wedad al Maidour, the head of the MoH tobacco control team, said: “We would like to increase the cost, but this is not possible through increases in the import tax,” she said.

“We can, however, raise the cost through increases in different taxes.

“In the first stage we would aim to double the price of a packet of cigarettes. We would also increase the price regularly, maybe every five years.”

She said studies in other countries have shown price increases help deter smoking, especially among teenagers and the money could be used to treat people who suffer from smoking-related illnesses.

Currently, tobacco products have warnings in Arabic and English reminding people that smoking is the main cause of cancer and lung, heart and artery disease.

These will be replaced by more graphic warnings, which are expected to cover half the area of the packet and may include images designed to discourage smoking.

The new law, which will forbid smoking on public transport or in enclosed public spaces, will be enforced by police and municipal inspectors. Cafes and restaurants located in residential areas will be given two years to relocate or implement the ban.

It will also be illegal to sell cigarettes to people under 18, or to smoke in a car in which there is a child under 12.

People who break the law will face fines of up to Dh1 million (US$272,000) and jail sentences of more than two years.

Doctors welcomed the ban. “I think this is a hugely positive step, particularly the idea to ban smoking in cars with children,” said Dr Jon Craig, from the American Hospital in Dubai.

“It is absolutely criminal that people do that with their own children in their cars.

Dr Amira Elsayed, a consultant family physician at the Mushrif Clinic in Abu Dhabi, said: “I think this can only help improve the health of people in the UAE. Second-hand smoking is a serious threat to people’s health.”
BY Charlie Hamilton
January 13. 2010 11

As the new year unfolds, Georgia citizens are wondering how the new leadership in the Georgia Legislature will do this session.

The timing of former House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s scandal is unfortunate, as lawmakers prepare to handle a myriad of issues. One of the most important is Georgia’s $1.3 billion budget shortfall that gets worse every day.

Now that the details of “Speakergate” have unfolded, it has become clear that abuse of power and inappropriate relationships with lobbyists were problematic. One relationship suggests that there were other under-the-table deals benefiting big tobacco companies that have gone unnoticed.

A shocking report, released by Atlanta Fox 5 TV’s Dale Russell several weeks ago, uncovered evidence suggesting that prominent tobacco lobbyist Raymon White acted as a facilitator for the alleged relationship between Richardson and the female Atlanta Gas Light lobbyist.

In an e-mail volley uncovered by Russell and his team, Richardson asks White, “Have you heard from my girl?” and, “How do I get to her?” White responds to Richardson’s requests via e-mail, saying, “Will you be free tomorrow? We can get to her, but it will have to be sneaky. At this time, it’s the best strategy.”

Georgia citizens should wonder what White was getting out of facilitating the relationship. White, a noted contract lobbyist at the Georgia Capitol, counts the Altria Group as a client. Altria is a parent company to brands like Philip Morris and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco.

One of the most discussed solutions to the revenue struggles in Georgia has been the proposed $1-per-pack increase to the state’s excise tax on cigarettes. The measure has been proposed for the past two sessions by Savannah Republican Rep. Ron Stephens, who points out that the measure could save thousands of lives and raise close to half a billion dollars in annual revenue that would go a long way towards filling the widening budget gap.

What’s more, it could save the state millions of dollars each year in Medicaid expenditures used to treat smoking related illness by discouraging smokers to continue the habit.

The bill filed last year is still alive and is stuck in the House Ways and Means Committee. Given the news about his dealings with White and considering the obvious impact that the bill would have on tobacco companies represented by White, it seems more than a coincidence that this measure was blocked by Richardson.

Considering the benefits that would be realized by the state and polling data that showed overwhelming bi-partisan support, why else would it have been done?

With new leaders poised to take over in the House, there is an opportunity to move Stephens’ bill, House Bill 39. The legislature should pass the additional cigarette tax that is supported by 75 percent of Georgia voters.

Does it really make more sense to continue to cut money for education, health care and transportation than to increase Georgia’s tobacco tax towards the national average? Kids need teachers, not cheap cigarettes.

Hopefully, the new Republican leadership will answer these tough questions by listening to the voters, not by catering to lobbyists for big tobacco. According to a popular axiom, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, such a failure by the new GOP leadership would come at a steep cost.

Bill Burns is a political consultant and Georgia advocacy director for the American Heart Association.

Amcor Ltd., Australia’s biggest packaging company, offered remedies to address European Union regulators’ antitrust concerns in their review of the company’s planned purchase of part of Rio Tinto Group’s Alcan unit.

The European Commission, the EU competition authority in Brussels, said in an e-mailed statement today that it extended its review by 10 working days to Dec. 14. An Amcor spokeswoman in Brussels, who asked not to be identified in line with company policy, said Amcor will make an announcement in due course.

Amcor, based in Melbourne, in August offered to buy part of Rio’s Alcan unit including European and Asian food packaging, global pharmaceuticals and global tobacco units for $2.025 billion. The takeover, Amcor’s biggest, will boost sales 50 percent and make it the world’s largest supplier of packaging to the pharmaceutical, healthcare and personal care industries, according to Deutsche Bank AG.

November 25, 2009,
By Matthew Newman and Brett Foley Bloomberg

Cigarettes are “widely contaminated” with bacteria, including some known to cause disease in people, concludes a new international study conducted by a University of Maryland environmental health researcher and microbial ecologists at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France.

The research team describes the study as the first to show that “cigarettes themselves could be the direct source of exposure to a wide array of potentially pathogenic microbes among smokers and other people exposed to secondhand smoke.” Still, the researchers caution that the public health implications are unclear and urge further research.

“We were quite surprised to identify such a wide variety of human bacterial pathogens in these products,” says lead researcher Amy R. Sapkota, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health.

“The commercially-available cigarettes that we tested were chock full of bacteria, as we had hypothesized, but we didn’t think we’d find so many that are infectious in humans,” explains Sapkota, who holds a joint appointment with the University’s Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and the department of epidemiology and biostatistics.

“If these organisms can survive the smoking process — and we believe they can — then they could possibly go on to contribute to both infectious and chronic illnesses in both smokers and individuals who are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke,” Sapkota adds. “So, it’s critical that we learn more about the bacterial content of cigarettes, which are used by more than a billion people worldwide.”

Public Health Significance

The researchers describe the study as the first snapshot of the total population of bacteria in cigarettes. Previous researchers have taken small samples of cigarette tobacco and placed them in cultures to see whether bacteria would grow. But Sapkota’s team took a more holistic approach using DNA microarray analysis to estimate the so-called bacterial metagenome, the totality of bacterial genetic material present in the tested cigarettes.

Among the study’s findings and conclusions:

* Commercially available cigarettes show a broad array of bacterial diversity, ranging from soil microorganisms to potential human pathogens;
* The is the first study to provide evidence that the numbers of microorganisms in a cigarette may be as “vast as the number of chemical constituents;”
* Hundreds of bacterial species were present in each cigarette, and additional testing is likely to increase that number significantly;
* No significant variability in bacterial diversity was observed across the four different cigarette brands examined: Camel; Kool Filter Kings; Lucky Strike Original Red; and Marlboro Red;
* Bacteria of medical significance to humans were identified in all of the tested cigarettes and included Acinetobacter (associated with lung and blood infections); Bacillus (some varieties associated with food borne illnesses and anthrax); Burkholderia (some forms responsible for respiratory infections); Clostridium(associated with foodborne illnesses and lung infections); Klebsiella (associated with a variety of lung, blood and other infections); and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (an organism that causes 10 percent of all hospital-acquired infections in the United States).

“Now that we’ve shown that a pack of cigarettes is loaded with bacteria, we will conduct follow-up research to determine the possible roles of these organisms in tobacco-related diseases.” Sapkota says.

For example, do cigarette-borne bacteria survive the burning process and go on to colonize smokers’ respiratory systems? Existing research suggests that some hardy bacteria can be transmitted this way, the researchers say. This might account for the fact that the respiratory tracts of smokers are characterized by higher levels of bacterial pathogens. But it’s also possible that smoking weakens natural immunity and the bacteria come from the general environment rather than from cigarettes. Further research will be needed to determine the possible health impacts of cigarette-borne bacteria.

Sapkota is the lead and corresponding author. She conducted the research with Sibel Berger under the guidance of Timothy M. Vogel in 2007 at the Environmental Microbial Genomics Group, Laboratoire Ampère, UMR CNRS 5005, Ecole Centrale de Lyon in Lyon, France.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C-
Wellstone Filters Sciences, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: WFSN), the leading
modified risk cigarette filter company, is pleased to announce that it has
changed its trading symbol to WFSN.OB due to a name change from Wellstone
Filters, Inc. to Wellstone Filter Sciences, Inc.

Wellstone changed its name to more accurately reflect the company’s focus on
Reduced Exposure Products (REPs). REPs are referred to in the recently enacted
Family Tobacco Act of 2009 as Modified Risk Tobacco Products.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Wellstone Filter Sciences, Inc. has developed and patented a “REP” or “Modified
Risk Tobacco Product,” the only cigarette filter that reduces toxins and
carcinogens without compromising taste. With over a decade of research and
development, Wellstone is the only company specializing in Modified Risk
Cigarette Filters. As such, Wellstone Filter Sciences, Inc.`s amply documented
filter technology is ideally suited for new FDA oversight of tobacco products.

According to The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as of 2005, approximately
44.5 million Americans still smoke. CEO L. J. Hand stated, “It is unconscionable
that we have the technology to reduce toxins in tobacco products yet lack the
requirement that all products utilize what we believe is the best available
technology.”

Note: Except for the historical information contained herein, this new release
contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and
uncertainties. Among the factors that could cause actual results or timelines to
differ materially are risks associated with research and clinical development,
regulatory approvals, supply capabilities and reliance on third-party
manufacturers, product commercialization, competition, litigation, and the other
risk factors listed from time to time in reports filed by Wellstone with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to risks described
under the caption “Important Factors That May Affect Our Business, Our Results
of Operation and Our Stock Price.” The forward-looking statements contained in
this news release represent judgments of the management of Wellstone as of the
date of this release. Wellstone and its managers and agents undertake no
obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements.

Wellstone Filter Sciences, Inc.
Investor relations
John Wilson, 919-370-4408

In Ontario were fined all the truck drivers which smoked in their Lorries. They have incited questions about differences between provincial and federal smoking laws, and what steps law officials must take in obliging them.

For example in Essex County Ontario Provincial Police pulled over a truck on Highway 401 near Windsor after the 48-year-old driver was seen smoking.

Almost all truckers argued that it is ridiculous that they can’t smoke in their cabs and think their industry is already controlled enough.

Officials explained: “An enclosed workplace can also be any vehicle covered by a roof and that employees work in or frequent while working, regardless of whether they are acting in the course of their employment at the time.”

But the new anti-smoking act applies to trucking companies that do business in Ontario only. Many trucks, especially those driving through Windsor to or from the United States, are federally and not just provincially regulated, which makes them subject to federal non-smoking laws.

Doug Switzer, vice-president of public affairs for the Ontario Trucking Association, said: “You can’t automatically assume that the act of smoking in a cab is illegal, because it may be perfectly legal depending on the company that that guy works for.”

Police have not identified the driver or his employer, and it is unknown which category this particular driver falls into. For some truckers, however, the issue is clear, but for others the new legislation is ridiculous.

“I really think that’s ridiculous,” said Abe Gunther, a truck driver.

Kevin McKellar, a driver for 21 years, said he’d go to court to fight a fine, if he were given one. “I own the truck, I’m the only driver. As far as I know, they can’t do anything to stop me from smoking in it,” he said.

Margarett Best, Health Promotion Minister said that the new anti-smoking law was approved only to protect the health of Ontario residents, that’s why it is supposed to work.

The ban on cigarette smoking while driving is the first of its kind in the world and is gathering great support in several U.S. states. For example Vermont lawmakers consider a blanket ban on any and all activities that could distract the driver while driving. However, several opponents of the “distracted driving” bill require that road accidents do not show clear evidence of being caused by either using mobile phones or smoking while driving.

The Finnish Ministry for Social Affairs and Health is set to propose legislation that will see the country pursue a course to a tobacco-free society. If passed, the new laws would make Finland the world’s first country dedicated to eradicating tobacco use.

The Finnish parliament was presented with a draft proposal by the Ministry last Thursday and is expected to discuss the new legislation in the coming days, SIKUnews reports.

Ismo Tuominen, one of the authors of the proposal, has stressed that tobacco will not become an illegal product, and its use will not be criminalised. Rather, a number of new measures to restrict public use and visibility will be coupled with existing legislation to ensure tobacco usage is minimised.

Tuominen cited Ireland as an example of greater restrictions saying: “In Ireland in July, it became a requirement to hide tobacco products under counters…We’re following that example.” The display of tobacco is also illegal in Iceland and parts of Canada.

He also went on to suggest that existing parliamentary measures aimed at merely reducing smoking were a tacit approval of tobacco. Tuominen argued that a strong government-supported stance on ending tobacco use would be the best option.

Such a stance includes increasing the minimum age of purchase for tobacco to 18 and the banning of all tobacco displays in shops. Further legislation would make smoking illegal in vehicles carrying children, whilst minors will not be able to possess, sell, or bring tobacco into the country. The tobacco industry is expected to strongly oppose any bans.

By Luna Finnsson, Oct 12, 2009, Icenews

MANHATTAN – Convenience stores and gas stations across the state say a recently enacted increase in tobacco permit fees, to pay for health care, is unconstitutional. The retailers say their flat annual fee of $100 has been jacked up in some cases to $5,000, and is not based on how much tobacco they sell, but on gross sales.
The retailers say the state unfairly increased the cost of their tobacco permits by 900 percent to 4,900 percent.
Retailers previously paid a $100 flat fee for the permits, but the amended tax code approved in April changed the fee to a sliding scale based on gross sales of all products.
Stores grossing less than $1 million have to pay $1,000 for their tobacco permit; those grossing between $1 million and $10 million pay $2,500; and those grossing more than $10 million must pay $5,000.
The retailers say that because the fee “is not calculated based on the amount of tobacco products sold,” it is not a permit at all, but a tax by another name.
“New York has no plausible rational basis for calculating a registration fee for the sale of tobacco products based upon the gross sales of completely unrelated products, such as gasoline and diesel fuel,” the plaintiffs say.
They also object that instead of using the money for “monitoring the registrant tobacco retailers,” the state will use some of it for the Health Care Improvement Act.
They claim the new fees are arbitrary and discriminatory, and violate their rights to equal protection.
Plaintiffs include the United 7-Eleven Franchise Owners of Long Island and New York, Long Island Gasoline Retailers Association, New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops, New York Association of Convenience Stores, and Service Station Dealers of Greater New York Inc.
Represented in New York County Court by Andrew Curto with Forchelli, Curto & Deegan, they seek declaratory judgment and relief

Copyright © 2009 Courthousenews

WHITE PLAINS - A Yonkers man is among 21 cigarette-smuggling suspects charged with evading the state tobacco tax in a sting operation that also netted a cache of homemade bombs and weapons inside Cortlandt man’s home.

The cigarette bust, which cost the state $21 million in lost taxes, was the largest of its kind in the United States, a state official said at a news conference this afternoon at the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.

“There will be more arrests, I’m confident,” said William Comiskey, the deputy commissoner of taxation and finance. “This is just one type of activity they’re involved in.”

Ibrahim Althnaibat, 49, of Willow Street in Yonkers was one of the alleged “middle men” arrested in the sting, joining 20 others from the five boroughs of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

The sting also led to Thursday’s arrest of 52-year-old Gary Burstell of Cortlandt, where police said they found homemade bombs, 14 rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition and $500 worth of fireworks during a raid of his home.

Burtell was not part of the cigarette smuggling ring, officials said, but investigators became aware of him when he started “schmoozing” with an undercover officer, Comiskey said.

Comiskey and DiFiore said the smuggling operation worked like this:

Westchester authorities launched the sting last year after a confidential informant told them that some people were looking to buy black market cigarettes, and invited state tax officers to join the operation.

They bought cartons of cigarettes straight from the manufacturers – mostly Newport and Marlboro – and started selling them out of a Yonkers garage.

Word of the operation got out, and soon undercover officers were selling unstamped cartons to scores of middle men, who would sell them at a discount to bodega owners and street vendors. The stores and vendors would sell the cigarettes at full price, and pocket the profits.

Some of those arrested would print out fake tobacco stamps and iron them onto the cigarettes before selling them to stores. The state tax on cigarettes is $2.75 per pack. New York City charges an extra $1.50 per pack.

The undercover officers were selling 20,000 cartons a week, and displayed the $841,000 they collected yesterday before the mass arrests.

“This was big business - $800,000 was a week’s pay,”  Comiskey said, referring to the amont investigators collected from the middle men.

More than 9 million unstamped cigarettes were sold in the sting, and the illegal purchases cost the state $21 milllion in lost taxes.

The men face felony tax fraud charges that are punishable by up to 25 years in prison. They also face a charge of possession or transport of 30,000 or more of unlawfully stamped cigarettes.

The yearlong operation was run by the enforcement arm of the state Department of Taxation and Finance, the Westchester District Attorney’s office, and detectives from the Yonkers and New York City police departments.

The state’s long and unsuccessful attempts to collect cigarette taxes from sales on sovereign Indian reservation lands took another hit in July when a state appellate court ruled that the Cayuga Indian Nation has the right to sell untaxed cigarettes at its two convenience stores in Seneca and Cayuga counties in upstate New York.

On July 10, the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, issued a two part 4-1 majority ruling, determining that the nation’s two Lakeside Trading stores in Union Springs and Seneca Falls are on qualified Indian reservation land, and therefore
can sell tax free cigarettes.

The court also determined the tax law that governs cigarette sales on reservations is section 471-e, “Taxes imposed on qualified reservations.”

Section 471-e requires the state to provide the nations with tax exempt coupons for cigarettes sold to tribal nation members on reservations and aims to provide a means to collect taxes on cigarettes sold to non-Indians. Although the law is on the books, it has never gone into effect because the state has not been able to figure out an effective legal coupon system.

Cigarette sales to tribal members on reservations are not taxable by law. New York legislators have been trying for years to force tribal smoke shops to collect taxes on cigarettes sold to non-Indians, but the nations say that as sovereign entities they are not obligated to act as tax collectors for other sovereign entities, such as the state. According to other parts of state law, non-Indians who buy cigarettes on reservations are obligated to report and pay the taxes on those purchases.

On Aug. 19, the counties filed a motion with the Appellate Court, asking permission to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals. Although the counties could have filed directly with the Court of Appeals, the strategy gives the counties extra time to prepare their case for the higher court whether or not the Appellate Court approves the motion.

“This case has enormous impact statewide,” said attorney Lee Alcott, of the nation’s Syracuse firm of French-Alcott. “This is really a sweeping victory for one small Indian nation and Indians as a whole. We’re praying, of course, that the ruling will stand appellate scrutiny if it goes to the Court of Appeals.”

The case began when the nation was forced to stop selling cigarettes Nov. 25, 2008 after Cayuga and Seneca county sheriffs’ deputies raided the tribe’s stores and seized almost 20,000 cartons of cigarettes.

Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Fisher, who issued the search warrants, sided with the counties in an early December ruling that the stores were not on sovereign territory or a qualified reservation and, therefore, the nation could not exercise Indian nations’ right to tax free trade on their lands.

Cayuga appealed to the Appellate Court, which in January issued a declaratory judgment allowing the nation to seek the return of their seized property from the lower court, and preventing the counties from criminally prosecuting the nation’s officials.

“It was extremely noteworthy because we believe it was the first time a court in New York or, in fact, maybe in any jurisdiction intervened and halted a criminal prosecution in a civil lawsuit,” Alcott said.

Fisher denied the nation’s request for the return of its seized cigarettes – worth some $500,000 – and granted the counties’ request prohibiting the stores from selling cigarettes to non-Indian customers while the appeal proceeded.

After re-opening briefly in January, the stores stopped selling cigarettes again until the Appellate Court ruling in July.

Although the judge prohibited the stores from selling cigarettes to non-Indians, they stopped selling cigarettes altogether, because they refused to participate in what they considered racial profiling.

“There is really no way of telling an Indian from a non-Indian. That’s why the state created this coupon system under section 471-e of the tax law that has never been implemented,” Alcott said.

The Appellate Court decision rejected the counties’ assertion that a civil case could not issue a declaratory judgment to stop prosecution in a criminal case on the ground that “a declaratory judgment action is available in cases where a constitutional question is involved or the legality or meaning of a statute is in question and no question of fact is involved,” the court said, quoting case law.

By reference to common law, the court also upheld the state’s legal definition of qualified reservation as “lands held by an Indian nation or tribe that is located within the reservation of that nation or tribe in the state.”

In 2003, when the state’s tax department drafted the regulations later adopted by the legislature, federal common law provided that Indian nations or tribes could purchase land on the open market and regain sovereignty over it provided the land was within the nation’s or tribe’s original reservation.

“We conclude that the legislature intended that the definition of qualified reservation reflected the existing federal common law at the time that the legislation was passed,” the majority wrote.

The Appellate Court noted, however, that the Cayuga lands were purchased before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. that the nation could not automatically regain sovereignty over dispossessed aboriginal lands that it had reacquired.

Justice Erin Perotta wrote a dissenting opinion in which she agreed with the majority decision that the Cayuga’s convenience stores are located on reservation lands, but she said that section 471, not 471-e, is the “imposing” law on all cigarettes for sale in the state.

The counties present the same argument as Perotta in their request for an appeal.

Additionally, they argue against the Appellate Court ruling on reservation lands because then any purchase of lands in a tribe’s historic reservation “ipso facto transforms such lands into a checkerboard of sovereign tax-free havens.”

The counties also took the unusual step of asking the Appellate Court to nullify its July 10 ruling by prohibiting Cayuga from selling cigarettes during the pendency of the appeal.

“We could be in that position for a couple of years and then either side may try to take it to the U.S. Supreme Court. So, the nation is, to say the least, vigorously opposing the application for permission to appeal and stay that would prohibit the nation from selling cigarettes.

“We think the Appellate Court got it exactly right and the stay would be purely punitive – it would be punishing the nation for doing something this court has already determined it had the right to do,” Alcott said.

The court reviewed the motions Aug. 31 and may take a few weeks or months to rule on them, Alcott said.


© Copyright: Aug 28, 2009 Indiancountrytoday

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that a group of tobacco vendors on an Indian reservation on Long Island cannot sell tax-free cigarettes to the general public until a court rules in a closely watched legal battle between the reservation and New York City.

A temporary injunction issued by Judge Carol B. Amon of Federal District Court in Brooklyn gave the city at least a temporary victory in its efforts to collect hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue.

“The city will go after every dollar that is owed to city taxpayers,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement on Wednesday. Under Judge Amon’s ruling, a group of cigarette businesses on the Poospatuck Indian Reservation near Mastic can sell tax-free cigarettes only to tribe members, for personal use, until a verdict is reached in a federal lawsuit the city filed in September.

The judge stayed the ruling for 30 days to give the vendors time to appeal.

“The judge’s ruling is completely wrong,” said Harry Wallace, a lawyer and the chief of the Unkechaug Indian Nation, which is on the Poospatuck reservation, adding that it ignored the Indian nation’s sovereignty.

The city says the reservation businesses are illegally selling large amounts of cheap cigarettes to people outside of the tribes, including bootleggers who bring cartons upon cartons into the city for resale. City officials estimated that the sales deprived the city of $420 million from 2004 to 2008.

The loss of tax income to tribal tobacco businesses has taken on greater urgency for many officials amid state and municipal budget cuts. A state court ruled in July that the Cayuga Indian Nation could not be prosecuted for failing to collect cigarette taxes, and the application of that decision is at issue in Mr. Bloomberg’s federal suit, which could have nationwide implications.

Copyright © August 26, 2009 Nytimes

By Jared A. Favole

ROCKVILLE, Md. -(Dow Jones)- Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said Monday she’s planning this week to name a director to run the agency’s new tobacco division.

Hamburg wouldn’t identify the pending director or elaborate on whether the person comes from industry or another public health agency. Hamburg said she personally interviewed six potential candidates.

In late June, just after President Barack Obama formally signed into law legislation giving the agency the authority to regulate tobacco, the FDA began looking for a czar to oversee the FDA’s new division. An advertisement for the job said the agency was looking for someone who was politically savvy, familiar with the inner-workings of Congress and had scientific expertise and experience in toxicology, epidemiology and public health.

Under this new authority, the FDA will charge tobacco companies such as Newport cigarette maker Lorillard Inc. (LO) and Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), which makes Camel and Winston cigarettes among others, an annual fee to pay for the regulation. The legislation also bans candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes, and restricts companies to marketing their products only through black and white advertisements.

Hamburg said the FDA’s tobacco division will likely house hundreds of FDA employees who will help the agency implement the new authority.

Hamburg said the FDA is also reorganizing the commissioner’s office to help the agency communicate issues to the public and better oversee industry.

The FDA will begin a nationwide search for a deputy commissioner for food safety, a new position. This new position will “be very important as part of our overall effort to modernize and strengthen food safety,” Hamburg told a group of medical experts who met Monday to discuss the state of science at the FDA.

The group met to discuss several issues, including the FDA’s information technology efforts and Bisphenol-A, a chemical used to harden plastics that can be found in baby bottles, sunglasses and food containers.

The FDA has been reviewing the safety of BPA for over a year amid some studies showing the chemical can cause developmental health effects. Chemical companies and several foreign health agencies have said the level of BPA found in current food products isn’t high enough for concern.

The FDA has said BPA is safe at current levels in food products but has been criticized for relying too heavily on industry-funded studies.

Hamburg, in one of her first appearances before Congress after being confirmed, said she put the FDA’s acting chief scientist in charge of reviewing the FDA’s stance on the chemical.

Jesse Goodman, acting chief scientist, said the FDA is still reviewing studies on BPA and will make a final recommendation in November.

-By Jared A. Favole, Dow Jones Newswires; 202.862.9207; jared.favole@ dowjones.com
August 17, 2009

(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-17-09 1639ET
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Although illegal sales of tobacco to minors nationally are at historic lows, some state officials fear that Oklahoma sales might have risen enough to trigger the loss of $7 million in federal funds used to treat substance abuse.

“We are on pace to go over the threshold this year if nothing improves,” said Jessica Hawkins, director of prevention services for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

Last year, 18.1 percent of Oklahoma retailers were found to have sold tobacco to minors, up from 12.5 percent the previous year, she said.

The next reporting period for these sales ends Sept. 30. The agency must submit its report in December, Hawkins said.

If more than 20 percent of the state’s retail stores are cited for selling tobacco for minors, 40 percent of federal substance abuse block grant funds could be stripped from the agency, she said.

On Tuesday, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released a report lauding all 50 states and the District of Columbia for reducing illegal sales of tobacco to minors below that 20-percent threshold.

The late Oklahoma congressman Mike Synar was author of the 1993 amendment that requires states to maintain a compliance rate of at least 80 percent on illegal tobacco sales to minors to keep the federal block grant funding.

“Rep. Synar had the vision to put something like this in place. But I’m sure this is not what Rep. Synar envisioned for his home state,” Hawkins said. “Our funding is on the line in terms of funding critical
services for substance abuse treatment and prevention.”

But Jim Hughes, assistant director for the Oklahoma Alcoholic Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission, said the state’s compliance rate appears to be higher this year.

ABLE agents routinely inspect retail stores year-round throughout the state to determine compliance rates.

“We’re about 70 to 80 percent done. It looks like the (compliance) percentages are going back up where we’ll be safe,” Hughes said.

The agency conducts “buy” operations where teenagers are sent to try to purchase tobacco products. If the minor successfully purchases tobacco, the retailer receives a citation and a fine.

If a retailer gets three citations in a two-year time period, its license to sell tobacco products can be suspended for 30 days.

ABLE has checked 456 of 613 randomly selected stores that must be checked by Sept. 30, Hughes said. Of those, the compliance rate is 91 percent.

Another 133 stores are being checked again this year because ABLE caught them selling to their selected teen, he said.

“Our job is to do the compliance checks and provide a report card,” Hughes said.

He said ABLE is seeking out funding during this difficult economy to provide retail store employees some training on tobacco sales.

“We’re doing the best we can,” Hughes said.

Hawkins said a change in the law would further help curtail the state’s illegal tobacco sales.

Oklahoma and Tennessee are the only states in the nation that don’t allow communities to enact stricter laws or policies on tobacco than state law, she said.

“I’ve got to think that somehow contributes to why Oklahoma still stands among a group of states that somehow can’t get their rates lower,” Hawkins said.


Copyright © 2009 Tulsaworld

Abdul Qadar of the Tobacco Retailers Alliance, which is funded by the tobacco industry, is correct in saying that there should be a focus on tackling tobacco smuggling, but he is confusing that problem with the issue of removing promotional displays of cigarettes. There is no evidence to link the two from countries that have already banned displays.
A display ban is about stopping advertising to young people, not stopping adult smokers buying tobacco or shops selling it. Every year in Scotland 15,000 young people take up smoking, and tobacco kills half of its long-term users.

Tobacco marketing has a disproportionate impact on young people. It is strongly correlated with an increased risk of smoking initiation, and young people, unlike adult smokers, tend to smoke the most visible and actively marketed brands of cigarettes. Tobacco companies have invested heavily in packaging and increasing their brands since advertising was banned.

Stopping the promotion of cigarettes to children is part of a package of measures aimed at preventing young people from starting to smoke. Alongside that are new sanctions including large fines of up to £20,000 for unregistered sellers, aimed at clamping down on illegal sales. All these measures will support Scotland’s health in future and should be welcomed.

Copyright © 2009 Scotsman

Cigarettes are just another commodity peddled through Paraguay’s decades-old underground economy, which flourished during the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. Before he was forced from power in 1989 in a military coup, Stroessner made the country a sanctuary for Nazi war criminals, deposed dictators, and smugglers.

The Tri-Border Area of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina is the epicenter of this contraband culture. A corridor for drugs, weapons, stolen cars, and any imaginable knock-off — from CDs to Viagra — this region of thick, green rainforests and spectacular waterfalls has also become the backdrop for the booming trade in smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes made in Paraguay.

imageIn downtown Ciudad del Este, cigarette master cases pile up along the sidewalk, ready to be picked up by smugglers. Marina Walker Guevara/ICIJ“The only thing that flourishes here is illegality,” says Humberto Rosetti, a prosecutor in Ciudad del Este, the commercial center of the Tri-Border Area, often regarded as one of the most lawless places on earth. The city’s downtown is a bustling labyrinth of narrow streets cluttered with thousands of street stands, money exchange houses and shops, where anything from exotic pets to AK-47s can be obtained with almost equal ease. Late-model Mercedes and BMWs sporting polarized windows rush by and scores of motor scooters, some of them transporting entire families, weave through the ubiquitous traffic jams. In the Calle de los Cigarrilleros, as locals have christened one of the city streets, boxes of Eight, Te, Rodeo, Calvert — the smugglers’ favorite brands — are stacked high along the sidewalk. “Our hands are pretty much tied,” says Rosetti, who has directed several cigarette seizures in recent months, only to see judges and customs officials promptly return the loads to smugglers.

U.S. officials regard Paraguay as a principal money laundering center for the proceeds of drugs, arms, and cigarette trafficking in South America — and Ciudad del Este sits at the core of that trade. Cigarette factories are often linked to money exchange houses where profits of the contraband are laundered, according to former factory managers and court records. So impenetrable is Ciudad del Este’s financial system that American undercover agents who infiltrated Roque Silveira’s U.S. smuggling ring were unable to find the money they helped the group launder. “We tried to track the proceeds,” says Assistant U.S. Attorney James Warwick. “Did we succeed? No.”

Several Paraguayan cigarette firms have conveniently built factories in Ciudad del Este and nearby Hernandarias. From there, cigarettes for years were smuggled to Brazil in vans, trucks, and buses through the shabby Friendship Bridge that connects Ciudad del Este with its Brazilian counterpart, the city of Foz do Iguaçu. Brazilians stepped up controls at the border in 2005, so smugglers switched from the road to the water. Starting at dusk, motor boats leave through any of the more than 300 makeshift piers fashioned along the nearby Lake Itaipú, formed by the dam of one of the world’s largest hydrological power plants, built on the Paraná River. To reach some of these illicit piers, one must navigate a maze of tortuous and narrow red-dirt paths through dense underbrush. One afternoon in March, ICIJ reporters visiting the seemingly deserted Codorso Pier came across a government worker smoothing out the smugglers’ trail with the help of his tractor. Reporters were told the smugglers were taking the day off to mourn one of their own, a former policeman, who had died in a car accident the day before.

“We close one pier, and two more pop up overnight,” says Gilberto Tragancin, chief of Brazil customs service in Foz do Iguaçu. With a shoreline of nearly 1,000 miles, Lake Itaipú is almost impossible to patrol in its entirety, Tragancin explains. A few yards outside of Tragancin’s office, a ‘cigarette trashing’ machine was in motion. The loud contraption pulverizes about 500,000 seized cigarette packs every day — the remains of which are used in fertilizers and to build roads. The flow of Paraguayan contraband cigarettes to Brazil is 20-30 billion sticks annually, experts estimate. In contrast, says Tragancin, legal exports of cigarettes to Brazil are zero.

Besides the public health threat it poses, cigarette smuggling is also bolstering violent organized crime groups that operate complex networks along the border with Brazil. Tragancin says these groups are now using the cigarette smuggling channels to supply weapons and munitions to some of Brazil’s most dangerous syndicates, including the First Command of the Capital (PCC), the leading criminal gang in Sao Paulo prisons.

The Trade Goes Global

International smugglers quickly spotted an opportunity in the booming Paraguayan illicit tobacco trade. Washington state-based cigarette wholesaler Stormmy Paul, a Tulalip Indian, flew to Paraguay in 2003 to cut a deal. He had been buying Chinese cigarettes, including counterfeit Marlboros, and re-selling them tax-free to smoke shops in his state, but he wanted a better combination of price and quality. A business partner from Brazil offered to make some introductions south of the border.

imageTulalip Indian Stormmy Paul sold contraband Paraguayan cigarettes to smoke shops in Washington state. Darren Breen/The HeraldIn Paraguay, Paul visited a handful of cigarette factories. One facility stood out: the heavily guarded Tabacalera Central in the outskirts of Asunción. The visitors were greeted by owner Roque Silveira and feted with a lavish barbecue. By the time dinner was completed an agreement had been sealed. Paul would pay $2 for each carton of cigarettes manufactured at Silveira’s facility and an additional $2 per carton to a middleman in Maryland who altered customs forms to avoid controls, and taxes, at U.S. ports. The deal still left Paul a $2 per-carton profit.

“I loved it down there,” said Paul, an enterprising, voluble fellow who leads a weekly ritual at a sweat lodge on the Tulalip reservation, north of Seattle. He found Silveira impressive. “He is a really sharp business guy,” said Paul of Silveira. “There is a certain class about him — Roque looks successful.”

Starting in late 2003, the ring of 11 people, most of them American tobacco traders, smuggled into the United States more than 120 million Paraguayan cigarettes, for distribution from California to North Carolina, according to court records. The ring was brought down in spring 2005 as the smugglers convened in Las Vegas. Silveira, Paul, and the others were indicted on a total of 50 counts of conspiracy, smuggling, trafficking, and money laundering. U.S. officials jailed Silveira for two months after his arrest at the Miami airport, but the Brazilian pledged to cooperate with authorities and was handed a probationary sentence. Silveira paid a fine and, to the amazement of Paraguayans, was let go.
River of the Dead

Around the same time the Americans gave Silveira a slap on the wrist, Brazilian prosecutors indicted him in one of the largest-ever cigarette smuggling investigations in that country. Codenamed Operation Fireball, the sting rounded up more than 90 people in 11 Brazilian states. In the indictment for the case, Silveira was fingered as a major supplier of contraband cigarettes who allegedly controlled three different networks that delivered the sticks to the populous Rio Grande do Sul state. Silveira managed to evade the law simply by staying in Paraguay, where, Brazilian prosecutors alleged, he has “a vast network of contacts and the financial capability to live underground.”

Created by Stephen RountreeSilveira had become the top dog in the traffic of cigarettes from Paraguay to Brazil following the 2003 arrest and subsequent conviction of legendary cigarette smuggler Roberto Eleuterio “Lobão” Da Silva, a Brazilian who wore plenty of bling and looked like Mr. T, Brazilian police say. From that point on, in smuggling parlance, Silveira “owned” the routes that led to millions of smokers in Brazil’s largest cities.

Two weeks after Operation Fireball, a Brazilian customs agent was murdered in a bleak, sparsely populated region of the border called Rio do Morte — River of the Dead. An anonymous caller tipped local police to a burned-out SUV on the road. So charred was the corpse in the passenger’s seat that police couldn’t readily identify the victim, who had been burned alive. Forensic experts eventually said the dead man was Carlos Renato Zamo, a resident of Mundo Novo, a city just north of Guaíra. He was one of thousands of customs agents working Brazil’s porous borders. Throughout the years, however, Zamo reportedly had grown far richer than most on a typical border agent’s salary. He accumulated real state investments in Sao Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul. He even owned a plane.

Brazilian police discovered that Zamo had worked for Silveira and other cigarette smugglers, who allegedly paid the agent $8,000 a month to assure their cigarette cargoes passed uninspected through border checkpoints. But Zamo had begun to fear discovery and finally backed out of the ring, police said. In a meeting, the smugglers allegedly offered to raise his payment, but he refused and tipped off customs about the group’s shipments, according to Brazilian police.

Four men were eventually arrested in connection to Zamo’s murder, but not Silveira, who was wanted by Brazilian authorities but remained at large in Paraguay. The day police officials announced the arrests, they addressed Silveira directly, calling him “the big head” of cigarette smuggling in the region. “Everything happens under his orders,” they said.

Canada’s illegal cigarette trade is soaring out of control — and governments at all levels are reluctant to do anything about it.

Imperial Tobacco says the problem is exploding.

Last year, one-third of all cigarettes in Canada were sold illegally. In Ontario, it skyrocketed to almost half — 48%.

The year before, the figure was roughly 22% across Canada, with just over 30% in this province.

“A lot of people’s livelihoods are at stake here,” says Imperial Tobacco President Benjamin Kemball.

It’s not just tobacco manufacturers who are hurting. Most convenience stores rely on tobacco sales for 30% of their profits.

“The sharp spike in illegal sales is eating into those profit margins and putting independent stores out of business,” Kemball noted.

Despite the massive loss of tax revenues due to illegal smokes, he noted, governments are “in denial.”

Kemball estimates governments across Canada are losing roughly $2.4 billion a year in uncollected tobacco taxes and that Ontario’s share of that is about $1.1 billion.

Last year, Ontario’s auditor general reported that in 2006/07 fiscal year, the loss to the province was $500 million.

“We believe it has doubled in that time and most of the figures would confirm that,” Kemball said.

While governments publicly pat themselves on the back for reducing the sale of legal tobacco, data shows those people are still smoking — they’re just buying more smokes illegally.

“All the government has done is create the largest illegal tobacco market in this hemisphere, including Latin America,” Kemball said.

While the problem originates on native reserves and in smoke shacks, not all reserves are to blame, he said.

Places like Six Nations and Akwesasne continue to be a problem, but many other reserves obey the law and demand ID for their on-reserve sales. On most reserves, only buyers with first nation status are allowed to purchase cigarettes without paying tax. Everyone else pays and those revenues are shared between the government and the reserve.

Kembell says the market has been taken over by organized crime with the criminals also selling guns, cocaine and marijuana.

“You now have Ontario’s youth buying tobacco products without any restrictions or controls from dealers who are also trafficking (in) alcohol, drugs and firearms,” he said.

CRIMINAL GROUPS

Sgt. Mike Harvey of the Cornwall RCMP confirms that. He says 25 criminal groups are involved in the illicit tobacco trade in the local area alone.

With cigarettes selling illegally for as little as $10 a carton, it’s mostly kids who are buying.

“They’re recruiting youth to transport the cigarettes from the Akwesasne Mohawk territory to smoke shacks in other aboriginal communities,” Harvey said.

In one case, a 17 year-old girl was making $6,000 a week doing that and used the money to finance her drug addiction.

“The general public sees this as sticking it to the tax man and that it’s their right to buy cigarettes at low prices (because) the government is over-taxing them,” he said. “They are really financing organized crime groups, who are using this money to produce drugs such as Ectasy and meth labs across Canada.”

I don’t smoke. I don’t like people to smoke around me. But if people are going to buy a legal product, they should do so legally. This week, the UN said Canada is a “primary source” of Ecstasy and methamphetamines.

As long as governments refuse to deal with the illicit tobacco trade, we’ll continue to be the party drug dealer of choice to the world.
Copyright © 2009 Torontosun

Cuepacs is ignoring the rights of non-smokers when it opposed the Public Service Department’s stand on no-smoking at government departments and agencies.

Prof Dr Rahmat Awang of Universiti Sains Malaysia’s National Poison Centre and Malaysian Trades Union Congress adviser on indoor air quality Dr T. Jayabalan said Cuepacs must be seen to serve the rights of non-smokers as much as it wanted to protect the rights of smokers.

They said it had been proven that ventilation systems could not filter the particles and gases in tobacco smoke to safe levels.

They said tobacco smoke contained more than 4,000 chemicals, including more than 200 that were poisonous, and at least 69 that were carcinogenic.

They were responding Cuepacs’ call to PSD not to impose a blanket ban on smoking in government premises but to provide smokers with designated smoking areas.
It was reported in a local daily recently that the PSD would monitor the no-smoking rule at government premises. The PSD had also said government servants were prohibited from smoking in government premises.

Dr Rahmat said the notion that designated smoking areas was a responsible alternative to a smoking ban was flawed.

Dr Rahmat and Dr Jayabalan said it was not advisable to have designated smoking areas because:

- smoking sections without floor-to-ceiling partitions between the non-smoking section and smoking section do not prevent exposure to second-hand smoke;

- designated rooms pose a threat to those who have to clean and work in them; and

- smoke escapes through the open door when people enter or leave the smoking room.

International Labour Organisation estimates showed that 200,000 workers were killed each year by exposure to second-hand smoke at work.

In a survey carried out in Malaysia, they said, it was found that 61.3 per cent of adult smokers had wanted to quit but found it difficult.

They said enforcing eight hours of non-smoking would be a step in the right direction to kick the habit.

“It must be remembered that there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke and scientists have concluded that the only effective protection is 100 per cent smoke-free places.”

More than 19 years ago, the assistant director of Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was shocked to hear that his star prosecution witness was brutally murdered, his bloated body found floating in Singapore Harbor.

Tommy Chui, a former director of a Hong Kong cigarette distribution company, was set to testify against his former colleagues and implicate members of the infamous criminal group, the Triad, along with corrupt Customs officials.

That company, Giant Island Ltd. (GIL), was a major distributor of the British American Tobacco (BAT) in China and Taiwan, and was believed to have organized a smuggling network for BAT cigarettes. GIL was reported to have transported cigarettes from Singapore and Subic Bay in the Philippines from freighters to fishing boats in the South China Sea.

Documented by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the case “reveals the dark underbelly of a billion-dollar business fed by international corporations and operated by organized crime,” its report published in 2001 says.

Links to Manila

Though based in Hong Kong, the operations had links to Manila through a GIL official named Hung Wing-wah, the company’s founder and majority owner, whom Chui had a disagreement with.

After GIL was raided, Hung fled Hong Kong and emigrated to Canada. According to the ICIJ report, Hung is believed to be living both in Canada and the Philippines. He and his partners set up a warehousing operation in Subic, stored British American Tobacco cigarettes there, and had them smuggled into China and elsewhere.

Hung, alias Fei Lo Hung or Fat Hung, is wanted on “suspicion of having conspired with others to offer bribes to senior executive officers of British-American Tobacco Co. (Hong Kong) Ltd. (BAT),” the case brief of the ICAC says.

Between 1988 and 1993, according to the brief, he offered “corrupt payments to a total amount of HK$100 million to ensure continuous supplies of cigarettes to Hung by BAT. The value of the cigarettes amounted to HK$8.5 billion, which were smuggled to the Mainland and Taiwan.”

As of September last year, Hung, now 60, remained on the “Wanted List” of the ICAC and has not been traced here. He remains at large and is proof of how stiff competition and the desire to make huge profits can push cigarette manufacturers to collude with smuggling rings that operate globally.

Collusion

BAT, however, is not the only cigarette manufacturer to be linked with smuggling syndicates. An ICIJ report late last year says that since 2004, even Philip Morris International and Japan Tobacco International (JTI), two major cigarette companies, “have agreed to pay a combined $1.65 billion to the European Community and 10 member-states to settle litigation that would have further exposed their involvement in cigarette smuggling.”

The 2001 ICIJ report says that even governors  of Colombia filed a civil racketeering lawsuit in 2000 accusing BAT and Philip Morris executives of involvement in drug-money laundering through a “black market peso exchange.” This complex system involves the laundering of drug money through “the purchase and importation of such goods as cigarettes and alcohol.”

PMPMI managing director Chris Nelson denies any involvement of his company in such activities, saying that they have been working closely with Subic and the Bureau of Customs (BOC). Manufacturers here, according to BOC insiders, even give out rewards to agents able to apprehend illegal shipments.

Controlled

An industry insider says that the major cigarette companies know what is going on. They supply the smuggling rings “because of volume and sales.” For manufacturers, there are no real risks involved. For the smugglers, “it’s worth the risks.”

The insider adds, “If your competitor allows this guy to buy from them and sneak into Cambodia or sneak into China, wouldn’t you want to do the same? But recently, it has been controlled.”

Philip Morris, according to the source (who is not from the same company), is now preventing its products from being smuggled out by limiting selling quantities to its outlets. If there are sudden spikes in orders of some outlets, these are not accommodated by Philip Morris because they could become avenues for smuggling. “That’s how controlled it is now,” the insider says.

The partnership between manufacturers and law enforcers has yielded results. After the BOC intercepted last January half-a-million locally manufactured Marlboro cigarettes that were about to be smuggled out, another seizure was made in March, also of Marlboro brands imported from Singapore.

The importation of cigarettes requires a permit, without which it is illegal because the Philippines already manufactures its own cigarettes.

The seized imported cigarettes were again mis-declared as personal effects and were found in a 20-footer container van filled with 7,500 reams of Marlboros worth about P5.4 million. This time the interception was made in the Port of Cebu.

Subic Officials’ Nod

No direct collusion between cigarette manufacturers here and criminal syndicates—as seen in Hong Kong—has been established by authorities. The other big players like JTI (brands include Winston, Camel, Mild Seven) and BAT (Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall), both itching to enter the domestic market, have not been linked to smuggling groups here.

However, their products can be found in niche markets such as convenience stores, gas stations, and other cigarette outlets without the prerequisite Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) tax stamps.

In February, the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group seized 130 boxes of imported cigarettes smuggled out of Subic. Also worth P5.4 million, the confiscation made by operatives in Morong, Bataan, yielded boxes of Black Devils (manufactured in The Netherlands by Heupink & Bloemen Tabak B.V.), Kents, and Mild Seven Lights.

Smuggled imported cigarettes available in the local market are easy to spot because besides the missing tax stamps, they do not bear regulatory health warnings or labels such as “for export to the Philippines.”

Loaded in three passenger vans, the imported cigarettes spirited out of Subic evidently indicated collusion between smugglers and Subic Freeport officials. Besides them, according to a member of Congress supportive of higher taxes on cigarettes, collusion exists, too, between marketers and merchandisers.

Corrupt Gate-Keepers

Smuggling here, says the cigarette industry insider, is not done by the players themselves but by wealthy entrepreneurs who have the means to pay off government officials who are supposed to act as gate-keepers. They are also the ones who can afford to keep their cigarettes in warehouses where they await distribution either to the domestic market or beyond.

Smuggling these days can be done more blatantly, with contraband getting past regular channels if the price is right.

The industry source says that years back, for the price of P120,000 to P150,000, container vans got past inspectors without declarations, documentation, and examination. Changes in administration shored up the cost of this privilege from P200,000 to as much as P250,000, the insider alleges.

Because of the sheer volume of container vans that pass through the ports and the need to balance inspections with the need to facilitate trade, the BOC—following a selectivity system—categorizes shipments into either the green, yellow or red lane.

The green lane system was put in place to cover all goods originating from member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to facilitate intra-Asean trade. Customs clearance under this system is more expeditious compared to other products. Shipments that pass through the yellow lane undergo documentary examination.

Red Lanes

Former President Joseph Estrada issued Executive Order 230 in 2000, establishing a “super green lane” which allows for “advance processing and clearance of the shipments of the country’s topmost qualified importers without the benefit of prior physical examination and documentary check on their shipments upon compliance with customs laws, rules and regulations.” The system requires accreditation by the BOC and the creation of a trust fund sourced from service fees charged per shipment.

BOC officials say that most of those in the super green lane category are multinational companies or companies that belong to the Top 100 corporations of the country with outstanding records. They say that random checks are still made on these shipments if intelligence information directs them to do so.

Customs officials, however, say that because cigarettes are classified as “high risk commodities,” these are always channeled to the red lane, where inspections are mandatory. Likewise, whenever shipments come in from countries on the BOC watch list—China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam, among others—they are automatically assigned to the red lane.

Smugglers know this and find means of circumventing customs checks. They either take pains to hide cigarettes in their 20- or 40-footer container vans that may not be as thoroughly checked by customs inspectors or, as previously mentioned, resort to circumlocutory routes so that goods come from countries not on the BOC watch list. They also alter the documentation of their shipments while in transit, or they simply mis-declare contraband cigarettes or bribe customs officials.

Political Pressure

If the goods are mis-declared, the BOC’s X-ray Inspection Unit should be able to spot and detect cigarettes that are being smuggled in. Yet shipments that have been confiscated or apprehended thus far were made not because of X-ray results but because of shared intelligence information. The X-ray unit has merely validated intelligence information that led to the apprehension of illegal cigarette shipments.

Political pressure also pushes some officials to corruption, as commissioners are given quotas or targets they should reach in terms of collections. The collections—according to the industry insider who has friends who also deal directly with some BOC officials—do not necessarily go to government coffers but to the pockets of personalities in power.

Some manufacturers say that they feel the crunch every time new tax measures are poised in Congress. They point out that Republic Act 9334 on excise taxes provides for increases every two years starting 2005. The law is supposed to hold and remain in place until 2011.

Nelson of Philip Morris says that, “If government is sensible, it won’t touch anything on taxes.” Congress has refused to take up new tax proposals on the tobacco industry despite explanations by the finance department that these new taxes can help trim the government’s budget deficit.

An administration out to increase its tax revenues will expectedly train its eyes on the tobacco industry which continues to rake in profits in this part of the world. If the performance of multinational Philip Morris for the first quarter of this year is any indication, good times may still lie ahead. Its market share even expanded in the Philippines despite restrictions on tobacco sale.

A New Jersey man pleaded guilty Tuesday to smuggling nearly 16 million cigarettes he bought from undercover federal agents in Virginia to sell in New York and New Jersey.

Mark A. Frondelli, 48, of Parlin, N.J., admitted as part of a plea agreement in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that he paid more than $2.3 million in cash in 47 separate transactions with undercover agents between November 2007 and August 2008.

Nearly all of the purchases were made in northern Virginia, though some were made in New Jersey and Maryland.

Frondelli bought untaxed cigarettes from the undercover agents and took them for black-market sale to areas like New York City, where required tax stamps add $4.25 to the price of a pack of cigarettes.

Authorities estimate state and local governments were cheated out of about $2.1 million in tax revenue from the illegal purchases.

Mike Campbell, a spokesman for the Washington field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said Fairfax County has become a hot spot for cigarette smugglers. As cigarette taxes have increased in some states, so has the profit opportunity for smugglers.

Campbell said one recent case involved an offer to pay for contraband cigarettes with a kilogram of cocaine; another case revealed links to Korean organized crime.

Investigations like that of Frondelli can sometimes take several months and multiple purchases, Campbell said, because investigators are looking to track down others who might be involved in criminal conduct.

“Most every case we investigate doesn’t end with one person,” Campbell said.

Frondelli is scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 7 and faces up to five years in prison. His lawyer, Christopher Amolsch, said his client accepts full responsibility for his actions.

Last year in Kentucky, a federal judge sentenced a Chicago man to 30 months in prison for smuggling 9 million cigarettes from Kentucky to Chicago and New York.

Nearly two million black market cigarettes were seized in eastern Manitoba on Wednesday in what is believed to be the largest individual bust of its kind in the province.

Investigators said they don’t know the transporter’s final destination, but he was stopped on the Trans-Canada Highway near West Hawk Lake, not far from the Manitoba-Ontario boundary.

“We don’t see a lot in this size,” said David Couprie, manager of Manitoba Finance’s special investigations unit, while showing off the haul.

The contraband cigarettes Couprie’s team seizes don’t have Manitoba or Canada tax markings and are sold underground in bars, coffee shops, bingo halls or wherever people gather, meaning no government collects taxes on them.

They’re readily available in Winnipeg, he said.

“We’re definitely seeing more (of them) and making seizures on a regular basis,” Couprie said.

In this latest bust, investigators seized 175 cases — 25 of “dis COUNT” brand cigarettes made by Jacobs Tobacco Co. in Akwesasne Mohawk Territory in New York and 150 of smokes in clear plastic bags — marked with health warnings from the U.S. Surgeon General.

That amounts to 1.75 million cigarettes in 8,750 cartons and a total street value of $395,000, Couprie said.

Sales would have resulted in $323,750 in lost taxes to the province, he said.

Falcon Beach RCMP found the smokes when they stopped a westbound rental truck during a traffic stop as part of Canada Road Safety Week. Manitoba Finance investigators were called in to enforce provincial violations.

Akwesasne straddles the boundaries of Ontario, Quebec and New York and is a primary smuggling route.

In Winnipeg, baggies containing 200 cigarettes sell for about $50, up from the $30 street price a year ago. Legal retailers sell cartons for about $90 apiece.

The driver of the truck, a 45-year-old man from St. Constant, Que., faces charges under the federal Excise Act and the Manitoba Tobacco Tax Act.

If convicted, he faces fines of up to $5,000, up to three months of jail time and a possible tax penalty of $971,250.

Copyright © 2009 Winnipegsun

Customs officials in Phuentsholing are in a dilemma. They have successfully confiscated tobacco products worth over one million ngultrums since 2007, but they don’t know what to do with the stockpiled contraband in their store.

“We can’t burn, dump or sell the tobacco to where it came from,” said a customs official. “How long can we go on storing them?” he wondered.

Seized goods in the past were burnt, but after they came under environment scrutiny, they started their storage.

“Selling it back would be against world health organisation (WHO) principles, as we are also a WHO member,” said an official from the health ministry.

An official from the national environment commission (NEC), during a trip to Phuentsholing recently, told Kuensel that burning or burying tobacco on a large scale could pollute air and underground water respectively.

However, the issue could be solved after the draft Waste Management Act is passed, according to the director general of NEC, Sonam Yangley. “For the moment, it must be decomposed in an environment-friendly way. Later, we could use the incinerator to burn tobacco without having to worry,” he said.

Health officials suggest burying tobacco in a deep dug pit after removing non-biodegradable plastics first. “Burning has adverse effects on both environment and health,” said the health ministry spokesperson.

The tobacco task force will be meeting today to discuss the issue in Thimphu.

Copyright © 2009 Kuenselonline

Whilst the overall volume of cigarettes seized in 2007/08 is comparable to that of the previous
year, the following table indicates notable changes in the points of interception.

Given the scale of the smuggling threat and the huge profits to be made,
it is crucial that we continue to refine and adapt our enforcement activity in order to maintain
downward pressure on the illicit market.

As a result of our response and success in intercepting large volumes of smuggled product from
China, Table 7 shows how seizures have subsequently started to drop off. There are indications
that the threat is diversifying, with other countries emerging as sources, or transit points, for
posted tobacco products, and we are assessing the displacement of this risk into other areas.
However, we have seen no major changes in smuggling in sea containers and Roll-on/Roll-off
(RORO) freight, though smugglers continue to refine their methods to minimise the risk of being
intercepted, and to reduce the impact of disruption when it does occur. For example, smugglers
are loading smaller amounts of cigarettes into sea containers and certain transhipment hubs are
growing in importance.
As this Chapter demonstrates, faced with a constantly changing picture of risk and the regular
emergence of new threats, standing still is not an option for the Tackling Tobacco Smuggling
strategy. Chapters 4 and 5 set out how the new partnership between the UKBA and HMRC will
rise to the challenges that we now face.

San Francisco’s ban on tobacco sales in pharmacies is a classic exercise of the government’s traditional “police power” “to protect public health and safety.”  Philip Morris’ effort to ascribe an “anti-speech” motive to San Francisco is factually inaccurate and legally irrelevant. San Francisco’s ordinance rests on the government’s strong public health interest in preventing tobacco use and addiction. Moreover, San Francisco may constitutionally exhibit hostility to tobacco use and addiction, and the ordinance is not subject to First Amendment review because its chosen means for accomplishing its public health goal was to regulate conduct and not speech.
I. San Francisco’s Ordinance Is An Entirely Constitutional Exercise Of The Government’s Established Authority To Take Incremental Steps Toward The Public Health Goal Of Preventing Tobacco Use and Addiction
The government’s traditional “police power” unquestionably vests San Francisco with the authority “to protect public health and safety.”
As discussed above, there are sound evidence-based public health reasons to prohibit tobacco sales in pharmacies. Social perceptions regarding smoking exert an enormous influence on whether non-smokers, especially youth, will become addicted. Lower densities of retail outlets selling tobacco correspond to lower consumption rates. Strong anti-smoking governmental enactments correlate with more negative perceptions of smoking, and legislation reducing the prevalence of smoking reduces use and addiction rates among youth. See supra at 5-7.
San Francisco’s ban on the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies heeds the lessons of this empirical research. It engages in the larger tobacco control war on the all-important battle front of social perception. The ordinance helps smokers and non-smokers alike avoid the dangerous social perception that smoking is compatible with a healthy lifestyle and reduces the ubiquity of tobacco. Pharmacists are healthcare providers who hold an ethical duty to act in the welfare of their patients. Eliminating tobacco sales allows pharmacists to help support their patients who are attempting to quit smoking and to avoid the inherent conflict of interest created when pharmacists profit from the sale of a product which, when used as intended, will contribute to the death of at least half its users.
The record in this case amply demonstrates that San Francisco enacted the ordinance for these very public health reasons and belies the claim that the ordinance was surreptitiously enacted to suppress tobacco advertising.
It is, of course, irrelevant that the ordinance may not immediately or completely eliminate all harm caused by tobacco. Cf. Appellant’s Opening Brief. Philip Morris emphasizes that the ordinance was not anticipated to reduce overall tobacco sales from current levels. Research, however, indicates that lower densities of retail outlets selling tobacco do correlate to lower consumption rates. Pearce,  J. Epidemiol. Cmty. Health at ; Leatherdale,  Ann. Behav.

II. San Francisco’s Approach To Tobacco Regulation Does Not Implicate the First Amendment Because The Ordinance Regulates Conduct And Not Speech
Philip Morris contends that San Francisco enacted the ordinance based on a hostility to the tobacco industry’s commercial speech. The record demonstrates that San Francisco adopted the ordinance based on public health concerns and not out of any surreptitious censorial motive. Equally to the point, San Francisco’s approach to the regulation of tobacco products reflects respect for First Amendment values because it regulates conduct.
As a threshold matter, it bears emphasis that Philip Morris’ “illicit motive” argument rests on a strained construction of references in the record to “messages” about tobacco use.  These references plainly refer to San Francisco’s embrace of the public health research about the influence of social perception and social norms on tobacco experimentation, use, and eventual addiction and the consequent importance of combating “messages” that contribute to the perception of tobacco products as healthful, cool, sophisticated, or otherwise positive. San Francisco’s effort to shape social perception underscores, rather than undercuts, the public health basis for this ordinance. And San Francisco, like the State of California through its media campaign about the tobacco industry,  is entitled to enact legislation that “sends a message” that smoking is bad.

The Government has today taken another significant step in the fight against tobacco smuggling as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Angela Eagle today signed anti-smuggling agreements with two international tobacco manufacturers.

The agreements with Philip Morris International (PMI) and Japan Tobacco International (JTI) – complement the legislation that the Government introduced in 2006, requiring all tobacco manufacturers to help prevent smuggling through careful control of their supply chains.

The Exchequer Secretary/Angela Eagle, said: “These agreements are an important new element in the fight against tobacco smuggling. In the last decade we have halved the size of the illicit cigarette market in the UK and by signing these agreements, we are demonstrating that we are determined to continue working with tobacco manufacturers to tackle smuggling.”

Since the UK’s first Tackling Tobacco Smuggling strategy was published in 2000, HM Revenue & Customs and the UK Border Agency have:

* reduced the proportion of illicit cigarettes from 21% in 2000 to 13%;
* seized more than 14 billion cigarettes and more than 1000 tonnes of hand rolling tobacco in the UK and abroad;
* broken up 370 criminal gangs involved in large-scale smuggling;
* prosecuted more than 2,000 people and issued more than £35m worth of confiscation orders.

Source: 7thspace

The Paris transport authority has made a fool of itself by doctoring an innocent poster featuring Jacques Tati, the late film-maker and actor who played the beloved eccentric Monsieur Hulot.

Tati has been treated to an acclaimed show at the national Cinémathèque, which I mentioned last week. They chose for their poster an archetypal shot of Tati/Hulot from his 1958 classic Mon Oncle. The pipe was Hulot’s trademark, along with the raincoat, and it is part of the collective memory for everyone who was around in the 50s and 60s. But it proved too much for the RATP, the transit authority, which refused to show it in the Métro and on its buses. The pipe might, they feared, appear to be an incitement to smoke and a breach of the anti-tobacco laws. [Watch the scene in trailer below - pure nostalgia for a vanished France],

Negotiations ensued with Macha Makeieff, the curator of the exhibition. She refused to let  Metrobus, the RATP’s advertising arm, erase the pipe. She suggested adding a notice that “This is not a pipe” — a wink at René Magritte. The yellow child’s windmill was a compromise. It still looks ridiculous though. Tati, who loved mocking the follies of modern life, would have been the first to laugh.

Tampering with art and free speech is taken seriously in France. The League of Human Rights is circulating a petition, according to Rue89 news. “It is necessary to mobilise people in the face of spreading political correctness which does not hesitate to deform works of  national heritage,” says the petition. “We demand that the SNCF (railways) and the RATP withdraw the posters… and that Monsieur Hulot’s pipe appears..”

The transit authority obviously failed to correct other dangerous images in the Tati poster, as the media have been pointing out. Tati is riding a Solex moped (another icon, see December post) but not wearing a crash helmet and neither is the little boy. The old Solex breaches anti-pollution laws. The child is also not in an approved safety seat. And of course there is a worrying suggestion of pedophilia that should not be tolerated. Both Le Monde and Liberation have picked up that angle in their mockery of the RATP 

Tati, who died in 1982, made only nine films but he left an impressive legacy. It’s impossible to think of post-war France without Hulot, an old-world character baffled by modern fads and technology. Also, we are told that Tati never smoked the pipe. He just used it as a prop.

Source: Timescorrespondents.typepad

Tobacco Product Samples:
All 50 states and the District of Columbia prohibit the distribution of tobacco products to minors. Twenty states and the District of Columbia restrict
where free samples of tobacco products can be distributed to the general public or virtually prohibit the free distribution of tobacco products entirely. Minnesota and Massachusetts prohibit the sampling of tobacco products entirely except for single-serving samples distributed in tobacco stores. Nebraska bans samples, coupons and rebate offers for smokeless tobacco products. Six states—California, Connecticut, New York, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin—and the District of Columbia prohibit giving away samples except in specific locations such as places inaccessible to minors,
and/or in a manufacturer’s place of business. Four states—Hawaii, Idaho, New Hampshire and Tennessee—prohibit giving away samples in public places. Seven states—Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and South Dakota—prohibit the free distribution of tobacco products to persons less than 18 and within a certain distance of a school, playground or other location used primarily by persons less than 18.
Sales of Single Cigarettes:
Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia place restrictions on cigarette packaging and the number of cigarettes that can be sold outside the package. Twenty-two states prohibit the sale of cigarettes in packs containing less than 20 cigarettes. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia prohibit the sale of single cigarettes. Fourteen states require cigarettes to be sold in a sealed package that is provided by the manufacturer
and that contains the health warning required by federal law. Eleven states require cigarettes to be sold in the original, sealed package.
Ten states prohibit roll-your-own tobacco in an individual package or container that contains less than 0.6 ounces of tobacco. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia prohibit the sale of cigarette packages that do not comply with the requirements of the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act for the placement of health warnings on the package.
* The number of states does not add up to 50 because
many states have multiple provisions.

A Bedouin man who works with his family as a cigarette smuggler has been charged with helping Hamas bring weapons to Gaza. Hassan Ali Suarcha was charged on Monday in the Be’er Sheva District Court with weapons smuggling and providing material aide to a terrorist organization.

Police say the Suarcha family, a Bedouin clan based primarily in the Sinai Peninsula, is involved in smuggling cigarettes and tobacco from Egypt to Israel. Cigarette smuggling is a lucrative trade – smugglers can earn twice the average monthly salary in just one day, and the trade as a whole brings in tens of millions of shekels each year.

Hassan Suarcha was one of several smugglers who began using his route to bring dozens of Kalashnikov rifles to Hamas, police say. The rifles were hidden in sacks of tobacco. The smugglers were paid $500 for the merchandise, which was taken directly from Sinai to Gaza.

Hassan and others were caught after finding work in a small Jewish community near Gaza. Police heard that smugglers were working in the area, and arrested the group.

One member of the Suarcha clan has admitted to playing a role in the weapons smuggling, and has implicated several others as well.

Source: Israelnationalnews