Terror Financing and the Black Market Cigarette Trade

Editor’s Note: For more a detailed discussion of how cigarette taxes “regressively target poorer smokers and encourage black market sales.” please see Weaponizing Poverty.

From: Front Page Magazine

The nanny state regulations that help fill the coffers of our enemies.

Eliot Bakker

In Pennsylvania last month, state representatives Russ Diamond and Rick Saccone challenged a $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase (which was later passed into law), arguing that the price hike would regressively target poorer smokers and encourage black market sales. More critically, the two lawmakers pointed out that increased sales of smuggled tobacco would put more money in the pockets of violent extremists who wish to do Americans harm.

That argument raised eyebrows in the press, but the point made by Diamond and Saccone is a critically important one. A major 2015 report from the State Department identified tobacco smuggling as a major threat to national security, noting that selling illegal cigarettes is a relatively “low-risk, high reward” activity for criminal networks and terror groups, who often join forces to exploit the illicit trade. The Pennsylvania representatives had especially good reason to be concerned about their state’s exposure to smuggling, since it sits on one of the most lucrative smuggling routes in the country.

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