Violent criminals expand into cigarettes

Violent criminals expand into cigarettes

www.usatoday.com

A recent wave of state tobacco tax increases, designed to pump revenue into cash-strapped local governments, is inspiring an increasingly dangerous cigarette smuggling industry where big profits lure violent criminal gangs and drug traffickers into the booming illegal market, according to law enforcement officials and court records.

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Isn't this kind of a no-brainer? This is described and an "unintended consequence of high cigarette tax". Nobody could see this coming? I think we can begin to pinpoint the source of many of government's problems - short-sightedness.

in low-tax states such as Virginia, where cigarettes cost about $4.50 a pack, smugglers can sell a truckload (typically 800 cases) in New York at $13 a pack. New York is the highest tobacco taxing jurisdiction in the country.

With profits like $85 a carton I could have a nice vacation with what I could pack into a suitcase. I don't know how many cartons to a case but 800 cartons make that $68,000 in profit! Times that by the number of cartons to a case and anyone could see the potential for violence there. Perhaps 20 cartons to a case?? $1,360,000 for a truckload. We are talking profits in deals I would not like to get in-between. Leave it to government to find a new way to create more crime and get people mangled and killed.

I guess I have spent too much - or not enough - time out of the country to realize where it has gone. When I first saw $4.50 a pack I thought THAT was the price in the high-tax area. I am a smoker and from California.

Only in America, land of opportunity.



www.usatoday.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Cigarettes can range from like $4.50 to $13 where I live. Hell its $25 for a carton of natives... 200 smokes! Where as its $11.75 for a pack of belmont or du maurier

They just now realize the business in it? They sell them at school 1 cig for 2 bucks. Do that on a cartel scale, thats some profit

I was talking to a buddy of mine who lives near Buffalo, NY and he told me the price for a pack of Marlboros at the local store is $9.75. There was a sign on the door when he walked in that said "All cigarettes sold at state minimum cost."

I know if somebody was trying to sell me bootleg smokes I wouldn't pay more than half retail price.

in low-tax states such as Virginia, where cigarettes cost about $4.50 a pack, smugglers can sell a truckload (typically 800 cases) in New York at $13 a pack. New York is the highest tobacco taxing jurisdiction in the country.

Yep. Truckers come through here regularly and just buy carton after carton of cigarettes, and keep on rolling up the interstate. They probably make as much money from that as they do trucking. I couldn't believe my ears when they were saying cigarettes were going for that much up North. I thought someone was yanking my chain until I heard of arrests being made in relation, up North.


Apparently if police catch you up North with a "suspicious" amount of cigarettes, they treat you like any other drug dealer/trafficker/whatever.

But in Virginia, police don't care because it's only bringing us business.


Ahh, the irony of the arbitrariness of laws.

I really don't think raising the price gets the state much more money

I have lived in several states when "the smoking ban" hit....and also during drastic price increases

Both events caused many people to quit all together, or to switch to rolling their own (cost of about $1.50 per pack)....both ways, the state loses out

I recently moved to a state where the smokes are over $8.00 a pack....and i quit....i didn't want to, but there is no way i could afford to keep doing it.

so take that state tax...(lol, they'll get it somehow)

So many people complain that they don't have enough money to pay their bills, then light up a smoke

priorities

If TSHTF, i'm breaking into a local gas station for a few cartons!!

The government will never learn. It will keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. The tighter it squeezes, the more problems it causes.

The existence of black markets in and over themselves in rebellion; humans don't like being controlled, they don't like stupid laws, and they'll definitely find ways to make a profit.

Due to a giant boost in taxes on cigarettes here this year my cigarettes have skyrocketed to 32 pesos a pack and I smoke one of the cheaper brands. 32 pesos amounts to about $2.70us a pack. My corner store has started carrying some cigarettes imported from Paraguay due to our runaway prices and a pack of those menthols sell at the store for 20 pesos a pack which is still a bit more than I was paying for cigarettes five years ago.

Just for anyone that might be curious, a kilo (2.2lbs) of roll-your-own Wackies costs about $100 - 125us.

I will state again for the record, I do not want to go back to the US, for any reason.

i feel bad for the smokers in the areaswhere cigarettes are that expensive...its funny where i live on the border of PA and NY. i pay $6 for a pack of marlboros in Pa and right over the border I mean it would take me about a min to walk from the store in PA to the one in NY and the price is over $9 for the same pack...its a joke...but I think that criminals have been doing this for awhile...i remeber watching SOPRANOS like 7 years ago and they were boosting truck loads. i know it was a show but if they were doing it on tv then the real gangsters new about it and were doing it long before that...

reply to post by Erongaricuaro


I live in Australia, and the recent spate of tobacco tax increases has fueled similar fears of a rise in the black market tobacco industry. 25 packs of bigger-name cigarettes go for about $15 - $16 Australian dollars. I've switched to rolling tobacco because it's cheaper...i.e, I can spend $35 on a 50 gram pouch of tobacco with a few packs of papers and filters to last me, and that can make me about 100 - 150 cigarettes in total, if I roll each one correctly with no wasted tobacco whatsoever. Judging by how delinquents and deviants on the street here in the Australian Capital Territory are willing to stab you for a cigarette (which has indeed happened to me before), tobacco-related violence can only go up when taxes are increased, on both a street level and an organized level.

Originally posted by Erongaricuaro
Just for anyone that might be curious, a kilo (2.2lbs) of roll-your-own Wackies costs about $100 - 125us.

That sounds like a damn good deal, but I have a feeling they don't carry that brand here in the states, do they?

it is ridiculous here in HK, hk$50.00 a pack.marlboro

i used to get black market cartons for hk$200.00 a carton. 4 at a time.

duty free? HK$170.00!! carton.

used to be HK$110.00

but now you can't bring into HK (if a resident) more than 19 cigs! there are 20 in a pack unless you pay!



no doubt there will be a criminal element involved.

but people have been doing that for years, tho.

i remember people/mafia hijacking tobacco trucks in the 60's and selling them.

I don't think it's short-sightedness... I think it's all planned. Oddly enough I was playing a game today called "Alpha Protocol" where one of the characters (Steven Heck) sent an e-mail regarding the U.S. government manipulating the price of everything (including strawberries) to see what the outcome would be. I would not be surprised... the CIA has their fingers in all pies.

No surprise, law enforcement is big business, now they have another plant they can arrest and jail people for under the guise of protecting them... Sigh! Hey maybe I can get rich marketing cigs to under age teens...

As far as i know it is not illegal to grow your own tobacco yet so if you wanna smoke grow and roll your own. You can order seeds over the internet. Plus home grown wont' have all the chemicals and crap they add to cigarettes so probably a lot safer aside from having smoke in your lungs which is never good for you.

Over hear it is $12 a pack for about the cheapest up to $25
I personally would not mind the prices you guys are paying
But I guess it is what you get use to

reply to post by hawkiye


Wild tobacco grows all over the side of the road. It is not the best Virginia burley, Turkish blend stuff but I have smoked it and it's OK. It is a tall plant with long fluted yellow flowers and the plant has some good sized ovate leaves.

I seem to recall another plant people used to smoke that grew everywhere. I wonder when the eradication efforts will start. It shouldn't take government too long to figure out there is more profit and more control to exercise over the populace if they outlaw tobacco altogether. Fortunately (??) some major players are already in the game so the government just has to be content with the crime they can create under a legal system. I wonder if that idea will catch-on for other banned substances??

when they make cigarettes illegal
then I'll be an outlaw.

I have been reading where there are a lot of people are going to RYO(roll your own shops) like this one in S. Florida for cheap cigs.


Roll Your Own shop


How can you trust the quality of cigs now-a-days? So many sources to get low quality blends who are one grade just above "acceptable".

Perhaps this is a good thing and will get people to quit smoking all together. I am trying to quit myself, my mother is too. Hopefully it will become too expensive to buy and we will be forced to quit.