Jump to full article: AP, 2007-04-23
Author: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Intro: A cigarette smuggling case in which authorities said Washington state lost about $56 million in tax revenue has ended in plea agreements with the man described as the ringleader and three other defendants.
Louie Mahoney, 61, who was said to have directed dealings in untaxed cigarettes from his home on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation in Idaho, pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court to racketeering conspiracy and other charges.
. . .
Louie Mahoney, doing business as JKL Enterprises, did not have a Coeur d'Alene tribal license to sell tobacco, according to documents filed in court by government lawyers.
He and the others were accused of money laundering, mail fraud, interstate transportation in aid of racketeering and cigarette record-keeping violations.
Investigators wrote that he ordered untaxed cigarettes from wholesale suppliers in Spokane and elsewhere, using two retail stores owned by relatives on the Coeur d'Alene reservations as fronts but arranging for deliveries to his home on U.S. Highway 95.
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