Report details Akwesasne link to billion dollar tobacco smuggling

Smuggling through Akwesasne Mohawk territory – which straddles the international border just east of Massena – is nothing new. Tobacco in the early 1990s, then people until the border tightening after 9/11. There’s even an Academy Award-nominated movie about it now.

There have been a lot of stories in the last year or two, especially in the Canadian press, about a dramatic increase of tobacco smuggling into Canada, with the resulting organized crime and violence. A couple from Massena were victims of a crime-related car chase last November.

Today, the Center for Public Integrity delivers a bruising investigation of tobacco smuggling through Akwesasne, replete with routes and maps (right, credit RCMP):

At the center of the trade are about 20 Indian-owned manufacturers that produce millions of untaxed and unregulated cigarettes a day out of small and medium-sized factories at Indian reserves in Ontario, Quebec, and across the border in New York State. An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found that outlaw bikers, Italian, Irish, Russian, and Asian mobs are also now involved in the manufacturing, distribution, and retailing of the illicit tobacco products. According to Indian smugglers and police, in some cases the capital to buy the equipment and set up operations was fronted by organized crime.

Stay tuned for more…