By Steve Strunsky/The Star-Ledger (New Jersey)
Cigarette smuggling can be hazardous to your financial health.
Two men found that out after being charged with trying to carry 400 cartons of untaxed cigarettes in the back of their car over the George Washington Bridge and then having to post $2,500 bail, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.
Sadeq Abdo A. Abdulla, 28, of Delano, Cal., and Tariq A, Aklsayedi, 32, of New York City, were stopped by PAPD officers at 8:02 a.m. on Monday, while they were driving in the high occupancy lane of the bridge, the Port Authority said. The HOV lane requires at least three occupants per car.
The officers asked the men what they had in two large cardboard boxes in the back seat of the car, and then became suspicious when the men told them canned goods.
Police then asked the men to open the boxes, and discovered they were cigarettes, the Port Authority said. At that point, officials said, the men’s hopes of pocketing the proceeds from the tax-free sale of the cigarettes to Bronx bodegas went up in smoke.
