Thirteen Washington area residents were indicted on charges of trading guns, drugs and cash for black market cigarettes to sell in New York, according to documents filed in federal court in Alexandria. Two conspirators are also accused of hiring a hit man to kill a husband and wife that they believed tried to steal from them. “The alleged crimes go far beyond illegal cigarettes, but also involve drugs, guns, and a plot to murder,” U. ... Jump to full article >>

TSHESEBE: The police have said they are still on the trail of smugglers suspected to have driven trucks loaded with high quality cigarettes into Botswana from Zimbabwe. This is contrary to reports that the culprits have been arrested and slapped with a P15,000 fine. The suspects escaped after the police confronted them, abandoning the contraband. The police recovered. 133 boxes containing 66,500 cartons of Pacific cigarettes, 108 boxes with 5 ... Jump to full article >>

More than 60,000 illicit cigarettes and almost 160 kilos of tobacco, including a haul concealed in boxing punch bags – have been seized in south Wales. This week as HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) continues its crack down on those who smuggle and sell non duty paid tobacco products. The punch bags, containing 53 kilos of loose tobacco, were seized at a Newport distribution centre before they could be delivered to a house in Cardiff. Officers v ... Jump to full article >>

The Irish Cancer Society is urging the Government to increase the tax on cigarettes by €1 in the forthcoming budget in order to fund the fight against tobacco smuggling. The organisation denies that an increase in the price of cigarettes would increase the sale of cheap smuggled tobacco. “High price is not the problem. The problem is that the courts aren’t imposing high enough penalties, there aren’t enough disincentives and a key piece ... Jump to full article >>

IMPLEMENTATION of a project designed to boost the monitoring of cigarette firms’ tax payments is targeted to start in the first half of next year. In a briefing for the House of Representatives ways and means committee yesterday, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Deputy Commissioner for Information Systems Lilia C. Guillermo said that the project, which was proposed by Swiss project developer SICPA Product Security SA in October 2007, will be s ... Jump to full article >>

Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) — A deadline for lawsuits seeking to recoup smokers’ health-care costs from a Japan Tobacco Inc. unit that had been sought by British Columbia, Ontario and New Brunswick was rejected by a judge for coming prematurely. The Canadian provinces want their claims for treating people with smoking-related illnesses included among those of creditors for Japan Tobacco’s insolvent JTI-MacDonald unit. The provinces said they fe ... Jump to full article >>

The struggling state coffers will burden smokers to get more revenue. Little cigars — the ones that come with filters in sweet flavors and look like cigarettes — will more than double in price because of the state budget crisis. Beginning Nov. 1, the cigars will cost an additional $1.60 per pack. The price will jump from 99 cents a pack to $2.59. At the same time, the price of cigarettes will go up an additional 25 cents. “They ... Jump to full article >>

Cigarette sales have plunged, and smokers have been streaming across the border since Florida’s $1-a-pack tax went into effect July 1. The latest figures from the Department of Business and Professional Regulation show a 28-percent drop in the sale of cigarette packs from July 2008 to July 2009 — 76.8 million packs sold this year compared to 106.6 million packs a year ago. Sales are also down from June, the month before the buck-a-pack i ... Jump to full article >>

Thousands of tobacco smugglers could be due compensation because their assets were wrongly confiscated, customs officials have admitted. More than £10m has been recovered from smugglers during the last four years. But officials failed to notice a change in the law in 2001, which meant only the main players in smuggling scams should have had their assets seized. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has called the slip “deeply regrettable”, ... Jump to full article >>

Arkansas Tobacco Control agents have periodically checked retail stores across the Missouri state line from Bella Vista since March 1, when Arkansas raised its cigarette tax by $5.60 per carton, but so far they’ve seen no smuggling of cigarettes. “I’ve not seen anything that looked anywhere close to a misdemeanor or felony,” Bill Holohan told Glenn Redding on Tuesday as the two Arkansas enforcement agents talked in the pa ... Jump to full article >>