Cigarette Smuggling Ring Broken

Good news, America – authorities broke up a Korean cigarette-smuggling ring in Fairfax County, VA. We can all sleep easy tonight. 17 people are going to jail. Whole thing, very much worth reading, here.

Aside from the smuggling, officers uncovered a sweatshop, probable immigration violations, identity theft, mortgage fraud and attempted murder. But the whole thing was only made possible by money made through cigarette smuggling.

The way it works is that conspirators in Virginia would buy “untaxed cigarettes,” possibly legally in their state, where the cigarette tax is much lower, and then drive to Queens, where they’d resell cigarettes at a profit. As I’ve noted before, New York has the highest cigarette tax in the nation, an intentional prohibitionist policy that leads some to quit but many others to turn to the black market.

As far as these things go, it doesn’t look like the cops violated anyone’s civil liberties and their investigation seems to have been conducted fairly. And the other crimes committed – especially identity fraud – do pose a serious risk to society.

But this obvious scam – buying cheap cigarettes in one low-tax state and re-selling them at a high-tax state – is very easy to conduct and likely to be repeated often. Putting a dent to a simple scam like this would have to require aggressive policing and frequent, humiliating frisking. In effect, the government’s motive for these procedures is to get itself more money.

Politicians could decide that increasing police, government power and punishing cigarette smokers (and not drinkers, burger eaters, workaholics, etc…) isn’t worth the cost of jailing people for providing eager consumers with the product they clearly want.

Don’t count on it though.