Cigarette trafficking has been used to fund Hizballah.
"Mosque Leader Charged in Cigarette Smuggling Ring," from IPT News, January 23:
A leader of a South Carolina mosque was among 11 men arrested in a cigarette trafficking and money laundering scheme spanning several states. A 26-count indictment issued in November and unsealed last week accused Nasser Alquza, president of the Central Mosque of Charleston, and others of conspiracy, receiving stolen property, and related charges.The arrests followed a government sting operation in which Alquza and other defendants allegedly purchased over 6,800 cases of "stolen" Marlboro cigarettes from undercover agents in exchange for over $7.5 million, the indictment said. The proceeds from the "stolen" cigarettes, whose wholesale value was in excess of $15 million, was then laundered through legitimate businesses owned or controlled by the defendants....
The indictment highlighted the illegal sale of cigarettes as a serious problem facing law enforcement. It detailed how criminal enterprises purchased large volumes of cigarettes in states with low cigarette taxes such as North and South Carolina and illegally transported them to states with higher cigarette taxes where they were sold without paying the sales tax for higher profits.
The case is reminiscent of a Hizballah fundraising operation from the 1990s based out of Charlotte, N.C., in which 18 defendants led by Mohamad Hammoud were responsible for the illegal smuggling of more than $8 million worth of cigarettes from North Carolina to Michigan. Profits from the cigarette sales were sent to Hizballah in Lebanon. In 2002, Hammoud was sentenced to 150 years in prison. A judge subsequently reduced Hammoud's sentence to 30 years....
CAIR to begin screaming "Entrapment!" at any moment.....
Fits well with my conspiracy theory that all of these Paki-owned and run convenience stores are up to something no good. Here, they're selling nontaxed smokes.
One more reason to boycott Muslims owned businesses. SImple rule: Have no contact with Muslims.
South Carolina mosque leader arrested in cigarette trafficking and money laundering scheme
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Seems there's now more way than one way that cigarettes can kill you...
More:
The case is reminiscent of a Hizballah fundraising operation from the 1990s based out of Charlotte, N.C., in which 18 defendants led by Mohamad Hammoud were responsible for the illegal smuggling of more than $8 million worth of cigarettes from North Carolina to Michigan. Profits from the cigarette sales were sent to Hizballah in Lebanon.
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Makes me wonder how much more of this is going on. This is a low-tech and otherwise probably fairly low-priority crime. But all that "Zakat" adds up...
GravenImage: First of all, don’t believe government stats about smoking. A nanny state is always warning its wards about things it doesn’t like (sugar, salt, ethanol-free gas, etc.). It doesn’t ban such things outright, just taxes their purchase and skewers the market and promotes the growth of organized crime, in addition to promoting a contempt for all law enforcement in the general public. Which leads me to the next point.
Islamic involvement in cigarette smuggling is greater than you might imagine, just as organized crime’s involvement in alcohol was rampant during Prohibition, and drug gangs’ involvement in federally-banned drugs were and continue to be catastrophic. With cigarettes, it’s the federal and state taxes on them that fuels criminal activity. In the past, gangs would hold up each other’s trucks laden with “illegal” alcohol. Al Capone waged continual warfare against rival gangs over “turf” or alcohol-distribution territory. Thus sensational crimes like the St. Valentine Day’s Massacre. And drug gangs battle each other over million-dollar shipments of “illegal” drugs. These latter cigarette smuggling rackets would vanish overnight if the taxes on the goods were repealed; the “market” for illegal cigarettes and drugs would drop through the floor. There have been stories of gangs hijacking trucks carrying a fortune in cigarettes. You just don’t read about them, they’re not carried by the MSM. The U.S. has spent billions of dollars “fighting drugs,” but to no effect. Overseas, it sprays poppy fields in Colombia and Afghanistan. The ATF and DEA have as much police power as the FBI, and is staffed mainly by crooks and thugs.
Before taxes, cigarettes, drugs, and even gas cost a fraction of their retail sale value. It’s the taxes that make them all expensive and a lucrative temptation, especially for cigarettes and drugs, to steal them by common criminals and to develop criminal rackets to sell them across state lines, especially in high tax states like New York. Drop the taxes, and the criminal activity vanishes. Before cocaine use was banned by the government, it caused no criminal activity and cocaine could be purchased in drug stores for the price of aspirin or some other panacea. Crimes committed by dope addicts were a mere handful. Now dope addicts commit crimes to support their expensive habit.
Based on past stories of Muslims being enmeshed in cigarette smuggling, I stopped patronizing Muslim-run tobacco stores here in Virginia and have found other outlets, such as supermarkets and places like Smokers Express. Robert quoted the article, saying “the illegal sale of cigarettes [is] a serious problem facing law enforcement.” Well, there wouldn’t be a “serious problem” if the government got its nose out of our private lives. The ATF and DEA should be abolished and its thugs furloughed without compensation. Taxes and controls on “illegal” goods also corrupts the judicial system no end.
Unfortunately, the simplest solution is never good enough for governments that want to retain power, because it would mean the surrender of power. Look at Washington or any state capitol.
Who said that pious Muslims don't like money?
And the plunder of the non-Muslim continues. It is organized crime, similar to the mafia, and should be treated as such with one realization: The ultimate goal of jihad is seditious in making Sharia law the law of the land. We need a set of laws specifically dealing with seditious and intentional jihad crimes, just as there are specific laws dealing with gang crimes and mafia crimes. Since President Obama has tried to remove the criminal intent from prosecution of jihad crimes, which criminal intent makes them more serious crimes (e.g., honor killing one's child to save face is First Degree Murder under U.S. law but acceptable under Sharia law), jihad crime legislation should specifically INCLUDE the true definitions of jihad intentions. We should all write to Congress and demand jihad crime legislation.
"The indictment highlighted the illegal sale of cigarettes as a serious problem facing law enforcement"?
More like the indictment highlighted money laundering by Muslims living in America who divert the proceeds to nefarious causes.