Editor’s Note: For more information on the multiple hazards from illicit tobacco sales, see Weaponizing Poverty.
From: PolitiFact Pennsylvania
“Illegal tobacco sales, price driven too high, has been connected to at least several cases of funding terrorism against us in multi-year investigations over the last decade and a half.”
Later, in an interview with PolitiFact PA, Saccone pointed to a noteworthy 2015 State Department report, “The Global Illicit Trade in Tobacco: A Threat to National Security.”
“Internationally, it fuels transnational crime, corruption, and terrorism,” the report’s authors wrote. “The illicit trade in tobacco products remains a lucrative revenue stream for many criminal actors and illicit networks.”
