Cigarette smuggling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cigarette smuggling is the illicit transportation of cigarettes from an administrative division with low taxation to a division with high taxation for sale and consumption. The practice, commonly used by organized crime syndicates and rebel groups, is a form of tax evasion.[1]
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[edit] Ireland
In Ireland the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a designated terrorist organization, smuggled cigarettes to raise money for attacks.[1]
[edit] United States
In the United States each of the fifty states tax cigarette packs at a different price. In 1992 states charged an average of 25 cents. By January 2002 that average increased to 45 cents. Six months later states, trying to compensate for budget deficits, raised their cigarette taxes to an average 54 cents. According to John D'Angelo of the U.S. government's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), there is a "direct relationship between the increase in a state's tax and an increase in illegal trafficking." The U.S. government foiled funding operations by Al Qaeda in New York in 1999 and Hezbollah in North Carolina in 2002.[1]
