From: Associated Press
BUFFALO, New York — Prosecutors say a New York man has admitted smuggling untaxed cigarettes from Kentucky through an upstate Indian reservation to smoke shops on Long Island.
U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. says 62-year-old Joseph Ruda of Rockville Center and his company, Gutlove and Shirvint Inc., pleaded guilty to cigarette smuggling Tuesday in Buffalo.
Hochul says the scheme to move 58,000 cartons ordered by mail cheated New York out of more than $1.4 million in taxes and Kentucky $175,000.
He says Ruda set up the shipments through the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation to the Peace Pipe Smoke Shop on the Poospatuck Indian Reservation, where the cigarettes were bought by bootleggers for sale in New York City.
Ruda faces six months in prison. His company paid the lost taxes to New York.
