Quoted:
Quoted: Buying cigs in a low tax state and selling them in a $5.00 a pack state is BIG business.
| And more important that fighting terrorism or securing our borders? Having a federal agency just to deal with silly stuff like that is a rediculous waste of resources.
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Not true. A lot of criminal organizations use the trafficing of duty free cigarettes to launder their money; for instance, Narco-trafficers from South America buy huge amounts of cigs from american tabbacco companies with the profits they make from their drugs here in the states. Basically, they turn the dollars they make here into cigarettes; they then ship the cigs to a duty free port in Aruba. From there they smuggle them into South America and sell them, cleaning their drug money, turning their once dirty dollars into their local currency.
It was on a PBS special.
ETA: What is really crazy is how shady the tobacco companies are; the drug trafficers will send a bag of 50 or more checks, each in the amount of $9,000 or less to them, in order to avoid the attention of the IRS. The Feds have warned the tobacco companies what is taking place, but because the profits are so good, the tobacco companies look the other way.