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• The Taliban diversify into tobacco  

LAHORE // The smuggling of tobacco is helping to fuel the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan, according to analysts and officials. While the poppy trade still contributes nearly half of the funds funnelled to the Taliban - both in Afghanistan and Pakistan - officials now believe the militants are increasingly turning to other sources, including tobacco sales and smuggling, kidnappings, logging and mining.

"We believe tobacco has been second only to drugs as a source of finance to the Pakistani Taliban," David Kaplan, the editorial director of the US-based Center for Public Integrity (CPI), a non-profit organisation based in Washington, DC, said in a report last month.

With the US and Pakistan both engaged in fighting the Taliban, there is a growing consensus among officials that the only way to defeat the militants is to hit them where it hurts the most - their pockets.

But that is becoming increasingly difficult as the Taliban appear adept at switching sources of financing. . . .

But with efforts by the US to wipe out poppy farming in Afghanistan showing some success, and sanctions by the Pakistani government on charitable donations, the Taliban have been forced to look elsewhere for financial support.

According to the World Health Organization, cigarette and tobacco smuggling provides about $40bn a year to extremist groups, including the Taliban. Analysts inside Pakistan estimate the group receives about 20 per cent of its funding from counterfeit cigarette production and smuggling.

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• Old IRA gun routes used to smuggle in cigarettes 

The same smuggling routes used by the IRA to import weapons from Libya in the Eighties are now being used to import huge amounts the counterfeit cigarettes that are flooding the Irish market at a cost of between €500m and €1bn a year in lost taxes.

The dissident republicans from the "Real" IRA, based in north Louth and south Armagh, are believed to be the biggest smugglers but appear to be working alongside retired Provisional IRA bosses who are still heavily involved in smuggling.

Gardai are concerned that some portion of the massive profits being racked up by the dissidents are going to pay for weapons to carry out attacks on PSNI officers. The dissidents have been recruiting young men in Catholic areas in the North and last month were responsible for stirring up sectarian violence.

The State appears to be unable to prevent the importation of the counterfeit cigarettes, which are manufactured in China. Investigations by Interpol and other agencies have shown that Irish smugglers are sourcing their cigarettes in China, via the internet, then having them smuggled to Tripoli in Libya, probably using the same contacts in the military there who supplied the IRA with weapons in the early Eighties.

Sources say the cigarettes are shipped via Malta then by sea or land in containers to Irish ports. The fact that the Irish Customs only have one container-scanner makes Irish ports an ideal destination for smuggling. Gardai believe that the smuggling is so large and well organised that they are also trans-shipping cigarettes and tobacco into Britain.

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• AUDIO: Tobacco Fuels Addiction, And Terrorism 

Fresh Air from WHYY, July 21, 2009 -- Cigarette smuggling is a lucrative, low-risk business that is sometimes used to help fund terrorist organizations around the world, according to a new report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The report, "Tobacco Underground," charts the paths of smugglers working for the Taliban, Hezbollah, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA) and others.

David Kaplan, editorial director at The Center for Public Integrity and editor of the report, explains how the multibillion-dollar business fuels organized crime, robs governments of tax money and spurs addiction.

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• The Taliban and Tobacco 

As government sanctions restrict traditional sources of terrorist financing, Pakistani militant groups increasingly rely on proceeds from counterfeit cigarette production and smuggling, intelligence sources say. Although income figures are rough estimates at best, profits from the illicit cigarette trade account for as much as 20 percent of funding for these militant groups, second only to heroin production, according to terrorism experts in Pakistan. "Taliban and other militant groups do not have to do much," says Ikram Sehgal, a senior defense and security analyst who heads SMS Security, Pakistan's leading private security company. "They simply receive taxes on a regular basis from owners of illegal and legal cigarette factories and later for the safe passage they provide to the convoys."

Sahib Ayub Afridi: local philanthropist, convicted drug smuggler, and top cigarette counterfeiter in Pakistan.The Afridi case is part of a broader trend of terrorism groups relying on contraband to finance their activities, experts say. Even if efforts to cut the region's booming heroin production are successful -- an unlikely prospect -- the lucrative tobacco trade suggests how hard it will be to stanch funding to terrorists and insurgents in areas far from government control. The world's longest-running civil wars are fueled by contraband according to a 2002 study by Stanford University's James Fearon. Cocaine smuggling has largely propelled FARC's 40-year insurgency in Colombia. Diamonds have funded civil wars in Sierra Leone and Angola. Opium has led to drawn-out conflicts in Afghanistan and Burma.

In the badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border, the challenges are particularly daunting.

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• Terrorism and Tobacco--How Cigarette Smuggling Finances Jihad and Insurgency Worldwide  

Smugglers take the same routes today — driving SUVs along paved roads or with guidance from the Tuareg and satellite phones — to move weapons, drugs, and, increasingly, humans — through the Sahara for transport across the Mediterranean Sea. The paths are no longer known as the Salt Roads of the Tuareg, but as the “Marlboro Connection,” named after the most lucrative contraband along this 2,000-mile corridor.

Among those who control this underground trade is al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Algeria-based terrorist organization widely believed to have been backed by Osama Bin Laden. Descended from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (known by its French acronym, GSPC) the group has hundreds of members and is blamed for a bloody campaign of bombings, murders, and kidnappings across North Africa and Europe. The lead smuggler, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, 37, is blamed for the 2003 kidnappings of 32 European tourists and the 2006 murder of 13 Algerian customs officials. “They are a significant threat,” says Lorenzo Vidino, author of Al Qaeda in Europe. “Of all Islamic terrorist groups, they have the most extensive and sophisticated network in Europe… And among their activities, smuggling is particularly important.”

Military officials and scholars say cigarette smuggling, in fact, has provided the bulk of financing for AQIM. The money comes not directly from smuggling, but from charging protection fees to others moving the untaxed cigarettes through the Sahara. The most smuggled brand is Marlboro, followed by Gauloises and American Legend, as well as counterfeited Rym, a popular Algerian brand. . . .

Hezbollah, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda are involved in smuggling cigarettes; so are the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Terrorist financing through cigarette smuggling is “huge,” says Louise Shelley, a transnational crime expert at George Mason University and an adviser to the World Economic Forum on illicit trade. “Worldwide — it’s no exaggeration… No one thinks cigarette smuggling is too serious, so law enforcement doesn’t spend resources to go after it.”

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• ATF Sting Smokes Out N.J. Cigarette Smuggler 

A New Jersey man has pleaded guilty in Alexandria federal court to purchasing thousands of cartons of cigarettes, the latest in a growing number of cases targeting smugglers who buy truckloads of cigarettes in Northern Virginia and sell them in other states without paying taxes on them.

Mark A. Frondelli, 48, entered his plea May 26 in U.S. District Court to one count of transporting, receiving, possessing and purchasing contraband cigarettes. He admitted in court documents that he had purchased more than 77,000 cartons of untaxed cigarettes from undercover agents about 44 times in Northern Virginia, mostly in Alexandria and Annandale. He put them in a box truck to conceal the cartons and drove to New York and New Jersey to sell them, the documents said.

Christopher Amolsch, an attorney for Frondelli, said he was lured into smuggling by the high potential for profit. . . .

Smuggling operations have long relied on suppliers in Virginia, where the state tax of 30 cents per pack is among the nation's lowest, partly because of the tobacco industry's historic prominence and political influence in the state.

Smugglers purchase cigarettes in Virginia, through criminal means or legally in bulk from wholesale outlets, and sell them in the New York area. . . .

Campbell said cigarette smuggling in Northern Virginia and nationally is increasingly a large-scale criminal enterprise, run by Russian, Asian and other organized crime groups. Federal officials have also linked the smuggling to terrorism since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, saying that terrorists use it to fund their activities.

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• House votes to crack down on tobacco black market 

The House on Thursday approved tougher enforcement measures against contraband cigarette sales that make money for criminals, but cost federal, state and local governments billions of dollars.

The bill, which passed 397-11, is especially aimed at Internet sales. Sellers on the Internet and others shipping to remote locations would have to verify the purchaser's age and identity through accessible databases.

Cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products could no longer be mailed through the U.S. Postal Service except in limited cases. Private delivery companies already have agreed not to ship tobacco products while the Postal Service continues to deliver products purchased over the Internet.

Misdemeanors under current law would be made felonies, and it would be a federal offense for any seller failing to pay state tax laws. . . .

Weiner cited a Government Accountability Office report that organizations including Hezbollah made money through the tobacco black market.

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• Nicotine may prevent bioterrorism damage  

British scientists say they've determined nicotine can delay the effects of ricin used during a bioterrorism attack.

Jon Mabley and his colleagues at the University of Brighton found nicotine works to block the tissue-destroying effects of ricin -- a highly toxic compound derived from castor beans. The study was conducted in laboratory models, but the scientists said nicotine agonists could potentially be used in patients exposed to ricin as a stopgap measure before other treatments take effect.

The British investigators studied the effect of nicotine on animals exposed to ricin and found it reduced death and organ failure.

"The protective effect of nicotine appears to be associated with its anti-inflammatory effect . . .

The study appears in the journal Molecular Medicine.

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• Bedouin Smugglers Armed Hamas 

A Bedouin man who works with his family as a cigarette smuggler has been charged with helping Hamas bring weapons to Gaza. Hassan Ali Suarcha was charged on Monday in the Be'er Sheva District Court with weapons smuggling and providing material aide to a terrorist organization.

Police say the Suarcha family, a Bedouin clan based primarily in the Sinai Peninsula, is involved in smuggling cigarettes and tobacco from Egypt to Israel. Cigarette smuggling is a lucrative trade – smugglers can earn twice the average monthly salary in just one day, and the trade as a whole brings in tens of millions of shekels each year.

Hassan Suarcha was one of several smugglers who began using his route to bring dozens of Kalashnikov rifles to Hamas, police say. The rifles were hidden in sacks of tobacco.

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• U.S. businessman 'funded Real IRA soldier killers by smuggling cigarettes into Ireland' 

An American businessman has been accused of funding the Real IRA by masterminding a cigarette smuggling ring that has netted them hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The case highlights the criminal activities which underpin the funding of terrorism in Northern Ireland.

Roman Vidal, 57, arranged for shipments of millions of cigarettes from Panama to Dublin where they were collected by contacts linked to the terror group.

The Real IRA has claimed responsibility for the murder of two British soldiers in Antrim on Saturday. . . .

Vidal is accused of sending two massive shipments of cigarettes to Ireland which were sold on the 'black market' at a fraction of the cost of other cigarettes.

U.S. customs agents told a Miami court they were able to trace the shipments, hidden under wood flooring and insulation material, to gangs linked to the Real IRA.

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• Huge haul of lethal cigarettes impounded  

CUSTOMS officers seized almost 60 million "counterfeit" cigarettes smuggled into the country by major criminal gangs, the biggest being the former south Armagh IRA brigade, it has emerged.

Tests on the counterfeit cigarettes, including fake packets of the popular John Player Blue, have shown that they can contain dangerously high levels of poisons including arsenic. The cigarettes are manufactured in clandestine factories in China and north Africa and have been found to contain floor sweepings, sawdust and toxic chemicals.

Senior gardai have told the Sunday Independent that former IRA members from south Armagh are responsible for smuggling cigarettes worth millions of euro over the past few years.

Cigarette smuggling is one of the fastest growing and most lucrative forms of crime in the State.

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• Scam, Like A Nesting Doll, Hid Even More 

The small white bungalow on Backlick Road, near a major Fairfax County intersection, seemed like an unlikely spot for a sweatshop. But when police and federal agents burst in, they found several women hunched over industrial sewing machines, cranking out counterfeit designer clothing, working off the debt they owed for passage to America.

The astonishing discovery came during a two-year investigation into a Korean organized crime ring based in Annandale that trafficked in untaxed cigarettes. Undercover officers and agents started off making $5 million in sales of contraband cigarettes. That led to the crime ring's money laundering and numerous financial schemes. There was even a murder-for-hire plot.

A tip from an informant helped break open a criminal enterprise that stretched from Northern Virginia to New York City, according to court records in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. Seventeen people have been sent to federal prison.

Although their focus was untaxed cigarettes, police also uncovered the sweatshop, rampant identity theft and mortgage fraud. Concerned that the same tools could be used by terrorists, federal authorities are now looking for ways to plug those potential security gaps. . . .

The operation was broken up in a series of raids in July, including one on Shin's home at 5020 Backlick Rd. Investigators were stunned to discover "a mini-factory," as Benedict called it. They found shelves full of counterfeit sports clothes and crack pipes that police think were used to keep workers addicted and subservient.

All those arrested in the ring pleaded guilty to fraud counts. Cho was sentenced to 42 months, with the provision that he would be deported at the end of his prison term.

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• Detroit-area man guilty in cigarette scheme 

Nearly five years after filing charges against 19 people, federal prosecutors got another conviction Monday in a multimillion-dollar scheme to sell illegal cigarettes, counterfeit Viagra and other goods.

The enterprise had international intrigue. The government claims all had allegiance to Hezbollah, and some money was given to the militant Lebanese group.

Fadi Hammoud, 36, of Dearborn pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering. His conviction is the eighth in the case. Nine of the 19 people have fled to Canada, Lebanon or Kuwait.

"You understand this is a serious crime," U.S. Chief District Judge Gerald Rosen said.

Hammoud, working with two brothers and an uncle, distributed the cigarettes in Michigan and had his own smoke shop. He's described as a minor participant and likely faces 15 months to 21 months in prison. The government says the cigarette trafficking lasted from 1996 to 2002. Cigarettes worth up to $500,000 were acquired each week in states with low or no tobacco taxes and then distributed in Michigan and New York. One source was the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation near Irving, N.Y. . . .

Some defense lawyers have objected to the reference to Hezbollah in the indictment

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• Cigarette groups warned Lynch of Marxist and IRA alliance dangers 

Tobacco adverts ban: IRELAND'S MAIN cigarette brands privately warned the taoiseach three decades ago that a tobacco advertising ban could plunge the country into disaster by sparking a deadly fusion of Marxists and the IRA.

State files also reveal fears in Jack Lynch's department at the time that moves to curb smoking could become another contraception-type row that would embarrass the Republic and isolate Protestants in Northern Ireland.

The chairmen of Carrolls, Gallahers and Player Wills tobacco companies demanded a meeting with Mr Lynch in 1978 as then health minister Charles Haughey prepared new laws to stamp out cigarette promotion.

In minutes of the meeting, newly-released into the National Archives, an aide of the Taoiseach records how the three men warned of potentially dire consequences from any restrictions.

They argued it would cut back on their sales, leaving them less money to create new employment in other non-tobacco industries.

"They saw the dangers that if employment was not provided for our growing young population, there could be a fusion between Marxism and the IRA, with disastrous effects for the country," the minutes state. . . .

Later that year, the Tobacco Products Act was passed into law which allowed for restrictions to be introduced.

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• Foreign 'soota' may be fuelling terror  

Beware: your foreign cigarette puff may be lighting up terrorism, proving it to be injurious to the country's health too.

Yes, the profits from genuine as well as cheap fake smuggled cigarettes of popular foreign brands are now under suspicion of funding terrorism in India.

Such cigarettes are coming into this country from Bangladesh, Myanmar, Korea and China. Popular brands like 555, Marlboro and Benson and Hedges are easily available at panwalla shops in every city.

A warning has been sounded by the American security agencies stating that the profits from cigarette smuggling in the USA are funding terrorist entities abroad such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaida.

Although prepared for a different purpose, India's top business body - Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India (ASSOCHAM) - in a report 'Combating counterfeiting - brand protection', released earlier this year, gives a definitive estimate of the huge funds generated through smuggled tobacco. . . .

After the November 26-29 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Indian spying and counter-terrorism agencies have started looking at various channels from where terror money is flowing into the terrorism market. The smuggling of foreign cigarettes' has come on their radar.

They are trying to calculate how much money generated through this smuggling network is finding its way to terrorism activities in India.

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