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CBC News: Disclosure - Cigarette Case: On the Tobacco Trail 

Private eye Larry Johnson says big tobacco companies are like "the conductor of the orchestra" when it comes to tobacco smuggling. "They're moving the product," he says. "They're moving the money. They're helping orchestrate it, helping build new markets."

Duty-free cigarettes from Miami arrived in Aruba's duty-free port, just 125 kilometres from the Colombian coast.

The European Union's lawsuits say the green light to smuggle cigarettes came from the Miami offices of RJ Reynolds International. Larry C. Johnson is a CIA agent turned private eye. He's been hired by lawyers for the European Union and the provinces of Colombia to prove some extraordinary allegations. . .

Documents obtained by Disclosure suggest RJR International not only knew where the cigarettes were going; it was directing the traffic.

In one marketing document it points out that "contraband channels are expanding: Aruba to Colombia."

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CBC News: Disclosure - Cigarette Case: An Eye on Tobacco 

For four years, former CIA agent Larry C. Johnson has been amassing evidence of a vast tobacco smuggling conspiracy. These days he's a private eye working for the European Union, looking into the connection between big tobacco companies and cigarette smuggling. . .

"Those are the boats," he says, pointing to some boats docked along a pier in Aruba. "See there they are, La Guijara, Colombian boat. They're loading the boxes on there right now. Those are master cases of cigarettes. These are being smuggled."

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Tobacco firm accused of smuggling 

These articles were originally published on Jan. 21, 2002 in the Dutch daily Trouw, which provided the following translation. They are reposted here with permission.

ORANJESTAD, Aruba - The American tobacco industry has smuggled billions of cigarettes through Aruba to Colombia and Venezuela. A company in Aruba's free trade zone was used as a cover. Drug money was used to pay for the cigarettes.

This allegation is made by a former CFO of the Aruban import and export company. In his opinion, the tobacco industry deliberately evaded taxes and duties by creating this smuggling route. His allegations are supported by internal documents from the industry. The transactions on Aruba and in Latin America provided the industry with a huge illegal market. . .

The documents that show BAT's involvement in the black trade in Colombia come from Romar Freezone, a company located on Aruba. Alex Solagnier (44) worked for twenty years for the company, the last ten of which as CFO.

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Tiny isle is key to illicit trade 

[This reprise of a part of the CPI report contains graphics of some of the documents--gb]

The chief purveyors of tobacco through Colombia's "backdoor ports" were two powerful Aruba families by the names of Mansur and Harms.

For more than 50 years, Philip Morris's main distributor in Latin America was the Mansur Free Zone Trading Co. NV. (The company's name changed to Glossco in 1999 after years of unwelcome scrutiny. U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1996 publicly identified Aruba "as a major drug-transit country" and noted: "A substantial portion of the free zone's businesses in Aruba are owned and operated by members of the Mansur family, who have been indicted in the United States on charges of conspiracy to launder trafficking proceeds.")

British American Tobacco, in the meantime, used the services of Roy Harms's Romar Free Zone Trading Co. NV as its distributor for parts of Latin America, and RJ Reynolds worked with cousin Bryan Harms, who figured in the Canadian smuggling in the early 1990s.

In August 1994, the United States indicted cousins Eric and Alex Mansur along with 52 others allegedly involved in a massive drug-money laundering enterprise. The investigation, dubbed Operation Golden Trash, targeted an alleged conspiracy that used narco dollars to purchase cigarettes, alcohol and household electronics, which were sold to individuals and businesses in Colombia. The proceeds flowed to cocaine barons.

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