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TOBACCO BUSINESS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
I
magine a black cloud of $5 billion
hanging over the cigarette industry: the
loss each year from tobacco trafficking
schemes. This is a widely accepted figure,
but some industry experts say it is even
higher—significantly higher.
Cigarettes have become “crime’s new
currency,” according to Thomas Lesnak, a
retired member of the U.S. Department
of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF), who puts
the figure for illegal cigarette trade at $10
billion. He recently opined on dailycaller.com
that cigarettes command the same net profit
as heroin.
“Cigarette trafficking in America has
reached epidemic levels because even in
limited quantities cigarettes are worth
more than narcotics and carry less risk of
prosecution or meeting a violent death,” he
wrote.
One state official agreed that he is
witnessing “dealers switch[ing] their
focus from traditional drugs to smuggling
cigarettes…because it is more profitable and
carries less jail time.”
But perhaps most shocking to those
outside of the tobacco realm is the fact that
“it is our well-intended tobacco control
policies that created—and continue to fuel—
