From: djournal.com
by Rod Guajardo
TUPELO – With a ceremonial toss of some dirt Monday morning, a project nearly a decade in the making to build a new headquarters for the Tupelo Police Department took a giant leap forward.
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After a six-year investigation that included the FBI, the TPD and area U.S. attorney’s and the U.S. Marshal’s offices, the city received the deed for the property in 2013 that had been used in a scheme to store cigarettes in a 100,000-square-foot warehouse on the Front Street property to avoid paying taxes.
The FBI investigation, which used the code name “Operation Secondhand Smoke,” involved companies and individuals in 23 different states .
