From: Canada.com
The illicit tobacco trade in Central Canada continues to flourish, with some First Nations manufacturers using industrial-grade machines that can crank out 3,000 to 10,000 cigarettes per minute, says a newly released RCMP criminal intelligence report.
As a sign of how profitable the underground industry has become, FINTRAC — the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, the federal agency tasked with tracking money flowing from terrorism and organized crime — identified $100 million in “suspicious financial transactions” in Kahnawake, Que., alone from 2006 to 2012, the report said.
Some manufacturers on reserves are now becoming more “self-sufficient,” harvesting and drying their own tobacco, instead of relying on “runners” and outside sources for their raw materials.
