Skip to main content

Europe is being flooded by smuggled Russian-made cigarettes worth at least $1 billion a year


Europe is being flooded by smuggled Russian-made cigarettes worth at least $1 billion a year, an international investigation has discovered. * * * The new underground smoking trade involves only one brand, Jin Ling, which is turning up in more cities and countries across Europe every month. Jin Ling, virtually unknown to the authorities three years ago, has grown so rapidly that law enforcement officials say it now rivals Marlboro as the top smuggled brand being seized in the European Union. * * * It is only sold illegally — smuggled by gangs who hope to pocket immense profits by selling unlicensed, untaxed cigarettes on black markets across Europe. * * * The scale and striking growth of Jin Ling smuggling has marked it as a major new development in organized crime, prompting European customs agencies to respond by launching “Operation Baltic” early in 2008. * * * German customs and police investigators believe that Jin Ling is being distributed and sold through organized crime networks, including Vietnamese and Lithuanian gangs, and policed by local enforcers.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daniel Bailey has been told to pay up £194,370 by a court. If he fails to hand over the money within six months, he will face a three-year jail term.

Daniel Bailey (35) avoided prison when he received a 26-week suspended sentence after pleading guilty to producing cannabis. But following a separate investigation into his finances by police, he has been told to pay up £194,370 by a court. If he fails to hand over the money within six months, he will face a three-year jail term.During a hearing brought by police under the Proceeds of Crime Act, Lincoln Crown Court was told officers swooped on Bailey's home, near Spalding, on August 5, 2005. They searched the property and found 22 cannabis plants growing among the flowers in his back garden.More cannabis seedlings were discovered in a shed, and two small lumps of the drug were seized in the house.Bailey was subsequently convicted of production of cannabis, which triggered the probe into his financial affairs.The further enquiries showed that in the six years before his arrest, Bailey had claimed incapacity benefit and income support to the tune of more than £21,000, to which he was...
Post a Comment
Read more

Riaz Mohammed, used a string of front companies to ship the highly addictive narcotic from Turkey.

Riaz Mohammed, used a string of front companies to ship the highly addictive narcotic from Turkey.The Court heard the "sophisticated" operation involved hiding half-kilo packages of the Class A substance in the hollowed out struts of wooden pallets. But despite the gang's best efforts each of the three importations - two to Dover docks and one which arrived at Heathrow airport - were intercepted during an investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).Altogether 24kg of the drug - with an estimated street value of £2.3 million - was seized. In the dock with Mohammed, 41, of Lancaster Road, Leytonstone, east London (25 years), were his lieutenant Ibrahim Janturk, 52, from Tottenham, north London (22 years), and "footsoldiers" Cetin Albar, 35, who lived in Clapton Common, east London, and Emircan Aytac, 48, of Boyson Road, Walworth, south-east London, who got 16 years each.Mohammed was convicted by a jury of three counts of conspiracy to import heroin ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Luciano Angrilli the manager at Prewett’s two nightclubs Khrome and Ecstasy has fled

Convicted Sarasota businessman Daniel Prewett of federal drug charges of Trafficking In Cocaine and money laundering charges, Prewtt Ran his cocaine operation out of his "front" an accounting firm at 5777 Beneva Rd Sarasota Fl during regular office hours, Prewett was the "main guy" in the Sarasota Cocaine powder Business. A confidential informant (CI) for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recorded video of a meeting with Sarasota businessman Daniel Prewett about laundering $100,000 in supposed drug money. On the video, Prewett tells the confidential informant to write down his full name on a form. “Felipe,” the informant says. “You know, no full names.”Later on the tape, Luciano Angrilli (his pic, he has fled), the manager at Prewett’s two nightclubs (Khrome and Ecstasy), tells the confidential informant (CI) about the benefits of Costa Rica and laundering the money through a loan. The confidential source then has an undercover agent bring in the $100,000...
Post a Comment
Read more