Cigarettes Will Kill You — Twice

The anti-smoking hysteria and “the terrorists win” finally converge:

WaPo — Cigarette Smuggling Linked to Terrorism

Smugglers with ties to terrorist groups are acquiring millions of dollars from illegal cigarette sales and funneling the cash to organizations such as al Qaeda and Hezbollah, federal law enforcement officials say, prompting a nationwide crackdown on black market tobacco.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has more than 300 open cases of illicit cigarette trafficking — including several with terrorist links — up from only a handful five years ago, ATF sources said.

“This is a major priority for us,” said Michael Bouchard, assistant director of the ATF. “The deeper we dig into these cases, the more ties to terrorism we’re discovering.”

The lucrative trafficking of cigarettes, known as cigarette diversion, is a simple scheme but difficult to stop, law enforcement officials say. The traffickers purchase a large volume of cigarettes in states where the tax is low, such as Virginia and North Carolina, transport them up Interstate 95 to states such as Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey and then sell them at a discount without paying the higher cigarette taxes in those states.

With huge profits — and low penalties for arrest and conviction — illicit cigarette trafficking now has begun to rival drug trafficking as a funding choice for terrorist groups, said William Billingslea, an ATF senior intelligence analyst who has studied the issue extensively.

Not only do terrorists kill people, but they cheat on their taxes, too.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. M says:

    You mean those terrorists aren’t paying their Welfare and Social Security dues?
    Damn them to hell.

  2. Sam says:

    “High tobacco taxes linke to Terrorism”