Claim: Illegal tobacco sales, price driven too high, has been connected to at least several cases of funding terrorism against us in multi-year investigations over the last decade and a half.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: Internet is being actively developed—enabling greater reach, more discretion, and lesser chances of being caught. In 2012, French police disrupted this trend through deleting domain names of online trading sites selling tobacco products (WCO 2012). Evidence suggests tobacco smuggling operations have been linked to terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, which utilize these profits to finance terrorism around the world. since the 1980s. The WCO Illicit Trade Report 2012 highlights the illicit tobacco trade represents a good opportunity for organized crime groups and/or terrorists to generate large sums of criminal profits. Billingslea (2004) wrote, terrorist groups work with organized

title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: crime groups as well as International drug trafficking organisations due to their “established trafficking routes and business contacts for the transfer of commodity for profit”. He adds, known and suspected Hezbollah and Hamas members have established front companies and legitimate businesses in the cigarette trade in Central and South America. The IRA (Irish Republican Army) was one of the first groups to begin using cigarettes to fund their activities. Police estimate that the IRA made $100million in the past 5 years from trafficking illicit cigarettes. In the Middle East, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) has known involvement in the trafficking

title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: of contraband cigarettes and tax stamps. The EU Commission report that the PKK has been smuggling American cigarettes into Iraq, which were then controlled by Saddam Hussein’s son. The combined efforts from cigarette and oil smuggling was reported to have made Saddam Hussein as much as $2.7billion annually after 1991. Most recently, 16 Palestinian men arrested due to a cigarette smuggling scheme in New York were found to have some ties to convicted terrorists. One criminal in particular, had known financial ties to Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric serving a life sentence for a conspiracy to blow up New York City

title: United States v. Philip Morris
text: a landmark 1,683-page opinion holding the tobacco companies liable for conspiracy and violations of RICO by fraudulently covering up the health risks associated with cigarettes and for marketing their products to children. Kessler wrote that the tobacco companies "have marketed and sold their lethal product with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success, and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs that success exacted." Because the DC Circuit held that RICO permits only forward-looking remedies to prevent and restrain future violations, Judge Kessler ruled that the tobacco companies could not be made to fund

title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: This is known as "the forbidden-fruit effect," among other references. The U.S. government foiled funding operations by Al-Qaeda in New York in 1999 and Hezbollah in North Carolina in 2002. It has been reported that smuggling one truckload of cigarettes within the United States can lead to a profit of US$2 million. Laws specifically pertaining to cigarette smuggling in the United States have included the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act of 1978, which makes cigarette smuggling a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. One of the most notable places of cigarette smuggling in the United States is New

title: British American Tobacco
text: a tobacco-smuggling issue that many anti-tobacco activists have been attempting to bring to light for years. Following several investigations, the HMRC reportedly seized more than 1.4 billion cigarettes and 330 tons of hand rolling tobacco in 2013-2014. BAT denied all claims and described the allegation and fine as “unjustified” In late November 2015, an episode of BBC’s Panorama program alleged that BAT was bribing officials in Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya in exchange for their limiting the implementation of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in their respective countries. The episode showed documents provided by whistleblower Paul Hopkins, who worked

title: Counterfeit consumer goods
text: revenues while foisting on an unsuspecting public a product found to contain toxic substances like faeces, asbestos and dead flies. The harm arising from this amalgam of contaminants sits on top of any baseline hazard ascribed to commercial tobacco products. With the sales of illicit cigarettes in Turkey, for example, exceeding 16.2 billion cigarettes per year, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan labeled counterfeit tobacco as "more dangerous than terrorism". According to a U.S. Senate committee report in 2012 and reported by ABC News, "counterfeit electronic parts from China are 'flooding' into critical U.S. military systems, including special operations helicopters and surveillance

title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: of the smuggling is dominated by First Nations members (though the bulk of First Nations members and leadership have opposed and condemned tobacco smuggling). Examples include: In Ireland the Irish Republican Army smuggled cigarettes to raise money for weapons and equipment. It may be associated with other criminal activity, for example: In the Republic of Ireland, cigarette prices are amongst the highest in the world due to heavy excise tax: typically €11 (US$12.70, GB£9.70) for a pack of twenty. Because of this, a heavy incentive is created for smuggling from the European Union mainland, where the same pack can cost

title: Cigarette taxes in the United States
text: Tobacco Company agreed to pay a total of $325 million to settle claims related to the smuggling. A Reynolds subsidiary, Northern Brands International Inc., was fined $75 million after pleading guilty under the Canadian Criminal Code to one count of conspiracy for helping others sell contraband cigarettes. While the smuggling operation was ongoing in the 1990s, tobacco companies were lobbying federal and provincial governments to lower cigarette taxes, pointing to the prevalence of contraband product as all the more reason to reduce taxes. Taxes on smokeless (chewing) tobacco, as well as (and often concurrent with) snuff, cigars and pipe tobacco,

title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: Road" when it became a favorite cigarette-smuggling route. The illicit trade of tobacco is both supply and demand driven, as consumers look to save money by evading taxes on tobacco; and suppliers want to take advantage of easy border entry, high profit margins, and weak repercussions if caught. Illegal cigarettes are priced much cheaper than legal cigarettes, and do not undergo stringent regulation in the form of health warnings, product checks, or age verification. Studies highlight that increased tobacco taxes do not dissuade consumers from smoking, rather, consumers turn to cheaper brands and illegal cigarettes. Low costs of production and

title: Smoking
text: taxes and the implementation of smoke-free laws in 128 countries that led to the decrease of smoking prevalence in developing nations. In the early 1980s, organized international drug trafficking grew. However, compounded with overproduction and tighter legal enforcement for the illegal product, drug dealers decided to convert the powder to "crack" – a solid, smoke-able form of cocaine, that could be sold in smaller quantities, to more people. This trend abated in the 1990s as increased police action coupled with a robust economy deterred many potential candidates to forfeit or fail to take up the habit. Recent years shows an

title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: of Europe’s fastest growing forms of organized crime, and has been responsible for funding larger operations such as drug smuggling or people trafficking. South Africa faces similar problems with cigarette smuggling, as police report the sale of illegal cigarettes is bigger than drugs in South Africa. The global scale of the illegal cigarette trade has reached an all-time high, as governments are estimated to lose over USD50 billion in global government revenues each year. A Euromonitor (2011) report estimates that there are 360 billion cigarettes consumed annually (excluding China), which accounts for 10% of the global market. Euromonitor (2013) reports

title: United States v. Philip Morris
text: that the tobacco companies had engaged in an approximately fifty-year conspiracy to fraudulently deceive the American public about the health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke, the addictiveness of nicotine, the health benefits from low tar, "light" cigarettes, and their manipulation of the design and composition of cigarettes in order to sustain nicotine addiction. According to the complaint, the tobacco companies deliberately sought to deny that smoking caused disease and to maintain that there was no scientific consensus on the subject. In furtherance of this strategy, Defendants allegedly issued deceptive press releases, published false and misleading articles, destroyed and

title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: Firearms (ATF), there is a "direct relationship between the increase in a state's tax and an increase in illegal trafficking." This is true with all psychotropic substances and, indeed, all forms of vice that may be desirable to individuals: the more the state or even the national government tries to repress the trade in amy legal or illegal substance, the higher the prices, and with them the profit margins, become--and the greater the willingness of illicit marketers to meet the demand, and with it the willingness to commit other violent crimes to prevent the closure of the illicit markets, becomes.

title: United States v. Philip Morris
text: United States v. Philip Morris United States v. Philip Morris USA, Inc. was a case in which the United States District Court for the District of Columbia held several major tobacco companies liable for violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act by engaging in numerous acts of fraud to further a conspiracy to deceive the American public about nicotine addiction and the health effects of cigarettes and environmental tobacco smoke. Judge Gladys Kessler found that the evidence overwhelmingly established that the companies violated RICO by coordinating their public relations, research, and marketing efforts in order to advance

title: United States v. Philip Morris
text: concealed documents which indicated that there was in fact a correlation between smoking and disease, and aggressively targeted children as potential new smokers. The lawsuit sought to recover health care expenditures the government had paid and would have to pay to treat tobacco-related illnesses as a result of the tobacco companies' unlawful action under three federal statutes: the Medical Care Recovery Act ("MCRA), the Medicare Secondary Payer ("MSP") provisions, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"). Additionally, the government requested injunctive relief under the RICO Act to prevent the tobacco companies from engaging in further fraud and to

title: Black market
text: champagne, and English gin to major cities like New York City and Boston, where prices ran high. It was said that some ships carried $200,000 in contraband in a single run. It has been reported that smuggling one truckload of cigarettes from a low-tax US state to a high-tax state can lead to a profit of up to $2 million. The low-tax states are generally the major tobacco producers, and have come under enormous criticism for their reluctance to increase taxes. North Carolina eventually agreed to raise its taxes from 5 cents to 35 cents per pack of 20 cigarettes,

title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: landmarks. Others arrested also had ties to a top Hamas official. Similarly in Hong Kong, police arrested 1,200 individuals from a wide range of gangs for drug trafficking, illegal possession of arms, and contraband cigarettes. Operation Thunderbolt, which aims to target triads in Hong Kong and neighboring provinces, has been successful in infiltrating various branches of the gang’s operational networks. The World Customs Organisation (2013) notes that while the number of illegal cigarette seizures has increased globally, the number of smuggling routes and channels continue to diversify accordingly. In Ireland, four men were recently caught transporting 9 million cigarettes with

title: Illicit cigarette trade
text: market.Tobacco Atlas (2013) estimates that if illicit trade was eliminated, $31.3 billion in tax revenue would be gained, and 164,000 premature deaths would be avoided annually due to higher average cigarette prices. The WCO Illicit Trade Report 2012 recommends placing greater importance on information collection and sharing on a national and International level in order to develop strategies to respond to this threat. Costs of illicit trade also go beyond purely financial measures, with repercussions such as encouraging youth uptake of smoking, and increasing health risks for consumers, as illegal cigarettes are not bound by product and ingredient checks. Despite

title: Tobacco
text: inflation-adjusted price of tobacco dropped 37%. Tobacco is the most widely smuggled legal product. Tobacco production requires the use of large amounts of pesticides. Tobacco companies recommend up to 16 separate applications of pesticides just in the period between planting the seeds in greenhouses and transplanting the young plants to the field. Pesticide use has been worsened by the desire to produce larger crops in less time because of the decreasing market value of tobacco. Pesticides often harm tobacco farmers because they are unaware of the health effects and the proper safety protocol for working with pesticides. These pesticides, as