Editor’s Note: See link to more photos here.
From: The Press-Enterprise
BY RICHARD K. De ATLEY STAFF WRITER
California Board of Equalization agents on Wednesday, Jan. 8 destroyed about $600,000 worth of seized contraband tobacco products whose labels, at least, said they were Cuban cigars, brand-name cigarettes, hookah tobacco and pipe tobacco.
The lot, 32 pallets worth packed into two trucks, was tossed onto the grounds of the Badlands Sanitary Landfill in Moreno Valley by agents of the state Board of Equalization, led by their boss, Chairman Jerome E. Horton. Their final fate was churning nearby in the form of giant bulldozers rolling over other waste.
The board said if the products were sold legally, they would have brought about $166,000 in tax revenue to state and local governments.
Randy Silva, the chief investigator for the Board of Equalization, said the cigarettes and other products were coming into California by smuggling — from Mexico and via oceangoing cargo containers with false manifests, among other means.
