Now, just the amount and quantity have increased. Officers remain uncertain whether the crimes are organized crime or gang-related, and because the cases are still under investigation, they can't answer questions about where cigarettes may have been smuggled, or to whom. Unanswered questions around cigarette smuggling seem to be a chronic condition throughout California. Los Angeles Police Department Detective Jack Giroud refuses to talk about local cigarette thefts, which have involved truck hijackings and a high-speed chase through the San Fernando Valley. We don't have anybody in custody, and I don't want to teach people how to steal cigarettes.
Costly cigarettes bring in enough profit to win favor even among organized crime circuits.
And things have never been more exciting in the world of cigarette investigators. During the flurry of lawsuits against Big Tobacco companies like British American Tobacco and R.J. Reynolds, thousands of pages of corporate documents indicated that cigarette manufacturers may have played a role in global smuggling operations. Tobacco companies, who lobbied hard against cigarette taxes like California's Proposition 10, have maintained that they shouldn't be held accountable for what happens to their product after it's sold. Libertarians agree, blaming high taxes for the burgeoning black market and new government enforcement bureaucracy. According to Leslie Thompson, a former employee of RJR Nabisco, his bosses knew of and encouraged global smuggling operations.