Monthly Archives: June 2012

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – A Chinese national has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Rhode Island on charges that he illegally smuggled more than $1 million worth of counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes into the United States.

Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha (Nuh-ROH’-nuh) announced the indictment against 32-year-old Lin Xiao (joo) Wei (way) on Friday.

Federal prosecutors say Wei was arrested in Miami on June 4 after federal agents arranged to purchase a 20-foot cargo container containing 17 pallets of counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes.

Authorities say the shipping documentation claimed the container contained leather products. Federal agents seized the container when it arrived in Miami from China on April 27.

From: BBC

Two former police officers and a driver have been jailed for smuggling sixty million cigarettes into the UK.

Gary Thompson, 43, and Anthony Lamb, 50, and driver David Lister, 49, faked paperwork to illegally ship cigarettes from the Middle and Far East.

Thompson was jailed for six years after admitting conspiring to evade tax duty, while Lister was jailed for two years after admitting the same offence.

Lamb denied the charge, but was found guilty at Newcastle Crown Court.

He was jailed for five years.

From: BBC

It was not unusual for cigarette smuggler Gary Thompson to saunter into banks several times a week and pay in cash sums of up to £20,000.

The former Cleveland Police officer had six different bank accounts, at least four aliases and was caught on camera many times paying in the proceeds of his scam.

HM Revenue and Customs officers said he lived a “luxury” lifestyle, owning a four-bedroom detached house in Castle Eden, near Hartlepool.

The 43-year-old drove a top-of-the range Mercedes car, owned four other properties and enjoyed foreign holidays.

From: NewsTalk.ie

It has been a busy week for Revenue Customs Service at Dublin Airport.

Staff their officers seized 700,000 cigarettes in 3 separate seizures.

On Tuesday 606,000 cigarettes were detected after they arrived in freight from Greece labelled as car parts.

The consignment was put under surveillance and intercepted in Bray Co. Wicklow.

A 43-year-old Romanian man was questioned before being released without charge.

The next day 70,000 cigarettes were recovered when Revenue Officers targetted a flight from Krakow in Poland.

4 males and 4 females aged from 16 to 34 were questioned and later released as part of the investigation.

From: AP

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Syrian national living in Massachusetts has been sentenced to five years of probation for his role in bringing millions of contraband cigarettes into Rhode Island.

The sentence was imposed Thursday on Mohamad Mohamad in U.S. District Court in Providence. He must spend one year in a halfway house.

Mohamad, who lives in Cambridge, pleaded guilty previously to trafficking in contraband cigarettes

Under a plea agreement, he admitted he had nearly three million contraband cigarettes worth more than $505,000 in taxes when he was arrested in November.