From: Toronto Life
by the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco
More than cheap cigarettes: A four-part series that looks inside the world of illegal tobacco
Organized crime has turned the trade of contraband smokes from a small-time smuggling operation a decade ago to a billion-dollar business today.
RCMP Sgt. Michael Harvey holds bags of contraband cigarettes seized in Cornwall, Ont. Credit: Randy Risling/GetStock
The police reports on seizures of illegal tobacco and cigarettes provide clues about how the underground industry works today. Along with contraband tobacco, law enforcement agencies often find substantial quantities of marijuana, hard drugs and weapons. A 2014 Sûreté du Québec-led operation, for example, turned up not only $7 million in contraband tobacco products, but also 1,300 marijuana plants in an operation where police believe a mafia organization used the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation territory to move product. As well, law officials in Quebec have implicated the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club for allegedly using proceeds from the sale of contraband cigarettes to finance sales of firearms. And, there is even evidence that some contraband tobacco profits are being used to fund terrorist groups.
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“Often the contraband is blamed on Aboriginal people, but the challenge is that Aboriginals are often an instrument used by organized crime, where their communities are being exploited by organized crime,” says Christian Leuprecht, a professor of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada and senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, who has extensively researched contraband tobacco in Canada. “Most Aboriginal communities don’t see a future for their people in the making and distribution of tobacco, in part because they know the linkages to organized crime.”
