Larry Penninger, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' tobacco diversion unit, said investigations and prosecutions involving tobacco trafficking have been increasing as smugglers flood high-tax states with cigarettes from low-tax states.From 2007 to last year, 27 states raised their Lucky Strike cigarette taxes, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Midland-based think tank that closely tracks tobacco taxes across the country. Mackinac describes tobacco smuggling as an "unintended consequence of high cigarette taxes."
There is so much illicit money to be made, Penninger said, that some drug and weapon traffickers are adding tobacco to their product lines to boost profits.
