From: Dallas Observer
The margins in the illicit cigarette trade are relatively low. Tobacco is legal, for one, eliminating the risk-based premium that comes with trading in illegal drugs, and there’s a lot of competition, which puts downward pressure on retail prices.
But there is a margin, enough of one to attract entrepreneurial types like Glen Murray McDonald, who don’t mind — and this is the part that makes it illicit — skirting state and/or federal tobacco taxes.
McDonald, a 50-year-old from Pasadena, Texas, was sentenced this morning to nine months in federal prison, followed by nine months home confinement after pleading guilty to his role in what prosecutors dubbed “Operation Cowtown Tobacco.” Ten others nabbed in the operations, all Texans, most from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, had previously been sentenced and ordered to pay restitution ranging from $24,000 to $1.1 million.
