From: Montreal Gazette
MONTREAL – A Roberval man was sentenced to 15 months in prison and fined nearly $800,000 last week for smuggling and selling contraband cigarettes.
Jean-Claude Bluteau, 73, was arrested in 2011 after Sûreté du Québec officers found 9,000 contraband cigarettes and more than $12,000 in cash during a raid of his Saguenay-area home. During his trial, Bluteau admitted to selling more than one million contraband cigarettes and evading tens of thousands of dollars in provincial sales tax in the process.
Bluteau has a history of selling and smuggling illegal cigarettes. The elderly man was busted in 2009, when police seized more than 70,000 contraband cigarettes. He was arrested again one year later during a raid that saw police nab about $8,000 in cash and another 70,000 cigarettes from Bluteau’s home.
Revenue Quebec estimates losses of more than $100 million annually associated to the sale of illegal, tax-free tobacco products.
