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• Cigarette smuggling costs state $20M  

Sales of illegal cigarettes cost the state an estimated $20 million a year in lost tax revenue, and the problem has been linked in other parts of the country to such organizations as al-Qaida and Hezbollah, experts say.

The lucrative business can bring smugglers $60,000 profit per truckload, with criminals in some cases using fake tax stamps to avoid having to pay taxes on their loot, the experts told a Georgia Senate panel Thursday.

Although Georgia isn't considered one of the top states for cigarette smuggling, "It would be ridiculous to say you don't have a problem," said Robert Shepherd, an ex-policeman and prosecutor who fought smuggling in New York.

The Senate committee is studying the problem and considering ways to fight it . . .

last year, when 18 people were charged in a smuggling conspiracy that prosecutors said raised money for Hezbollah.

"The enterprise operated from Lebanon, Canada, Brazil, Paraguay, China, North Carolina, Florida and the Dearborn, Mich., area, perpetrating crimes in the states of Michigan, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, West Virginia and points in between," the indictment alleged.

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