Letter: Cigarette smuggling increases smoking rate
It’s time for New York leaders to wake up and start listening to state law enforcement professionals. The adult smoking rate is going up because of the growing crime wave of cigarette smuggling in the Empire State, not because of budget cuts to anti-tobacco programs. Each year investigative experts estimate that between 50 percent and 60 percent of all cigarettes smoked in New York City are trafficked via the black market. Smokers are spending less for illegal contraband cigarettes than ever before, making it easier to light up.
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Brief: US Customs seize fake handbags, Lego worth $500k
Seized Michael Kors handbag: US Customs and Border Protection officers working at the Houston/Galveston seaport seized more than 200 counterfeit designer handbags and other goods with an estimated retail price of $500,000. The fakes – which included copies of Michael Kors, Prada and Christian Dior items amongst other brands – originated from China and were manifested as bags, plastic toys and jewelry. The haul also included 50 packs of plastic building blocks bearing Lego branding that were deemed to contravene trademark laws.
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Russia to allow limited Internet sales of alcohol
Russia is planning to relax its stringent controls on the sale of alcohol over the Internet, though some restrictions will remain in effect. The ban on selling alcohol online was first introduced in 2007, in part to curb rampant alcohol abuse in the country but also in a bid to clamp down on widespread sales of harmful counterfeit and bootleg products. The year before the ban was introduced, it was estimated by the country’s interior ministry that counterfeit alcohol was killing 42,000 Russians a year.
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Canadian Mounties seize fake OxyContin
Bagged pillsPolice in Canada are warning the public to beware of counterfeit OxyContin pills laced with the potent opioid analgesic fentanyl. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Surrey, British Columbia, seized around 4,700 green tablets – worth in excess of C$350,000 ($310,000) – that purport to be 80mg OxyContin (oxycodone hydrochloride). Lab analyses confirmed that tablets – which have 80 stamped on one side and CDN on the other – contained caffeine and fentanyl, which is more potent than heroin or morphine.
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Sales of cigarettes at duty-free stores encouraging smuggling: civic groups
Several civic groups yesterday urged the government to halt sales of duty-free cigarettes at the nation’s airports to put an end to the rampant practice of people buying large quantities of tax-exempt tobacco products and selling them to youngsters for a profit.
“Since last year, we have been receiving anonymous complaints that a growing number of tobacco brokers, duty-free shop employees, airport workers, or tourist guides have taken advantage of the nature of their professions to buy large quantities of duty-free cigarettes abroad or at the nation’s airports and smuggle them into the country,” John Tung Foundation chief executive officer Yao Shi-yuan said yesterday in a press release.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/10/04/2003601247
Lear MoreSmuggled cigarettes and alcohol found in Derby shop
A DERBY store could be stopped from selling alcohol after its director was convicted of smuggling.
The city council has said that Redas Norgaila, director of Zolushka, Becket Street, pleaded guilty in May to smuggling tobacco, cigarettes and alcohol. Now the authority’s trading standards team has called on its general licensing sub committee to review the store’s licence to sell alcohol. It could revoke or suspend it, modify conditions, or remove the designated premises supervisor – currently Ilona Dalisanskaite.
Lear MoreCIDG operatives seize fake, smuggled goods worth P500M
Counterfeit and smuggled goods worth more than P500 million were seized during a two-day operation launched by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Manila. Director Benjamin Magalong, CIDG chief, said operatives of the CIDG’s Anti-Fraud and Commercial Crimes Unit, under Senior Supt. Bartolome Bustamante, led the operations against seven big warehouses in Tondo on Oct. 2-3. Magalong said the raids were made jointly with the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, the Bureau of Customs and the National Bureau of Investigation.
Lear MoreFlight attendant jailed for tobacco smuggling
A FLIGHT attendant has been jailed for carrying out a €230,000 tobacco smuggling operation between the UK and Spain. Dennis Connolly has been handed a 21-month jail sentence for masterminding a cigarette smuggling operation by using his staff discount privileges to pay for flights. The easyJet flight attendant was heavily in debt after he took to online gambling to deal with the grief of losing his boyfriend to pancreatic cancer in 2007.
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Philip Morris targets illegal tobacco trade
Manufacturer trialling education programme for independents as survey shows the use of illicit tobacco products by consumers has doubled in Manchester in the last 12 months. Tobacco company Philip Morris is using its newly created sales force to trial an education programme for 250 independent retailers in Manchester after research found 20% of cigarettes smoked in the north-west of England were contraband.
Manchester has been chosen to trial the programme after Philip Morris test purchasers in the city were able to buy illicit tobacco products on 32 separate occasions over a three-day period – more than in any other location during 2014. A separate survey of discarded cigarette packs in Manchester by brand protection agency MSIntelligence showed the use of bootlegged, smuggled or counterfeit cigarettes had doubled in the city in just over a year.
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Customs arrests 26 smugglers over N322m contraband goods
The Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone ‘C’ of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) recorded 98 seizures of contraband goods valued at N322 million in September 2014. The command also arrested 26 smugglers in connection with the illegal imports. The Customs Area Controller of the unit, Dimka Victor David, who made the disclosure in Benin said the seizures were made in the South East and South South geo-political zones of the country.
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=84502
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