Bootleggers, beware!
The Queens District Attorney’s Office has busted a dozen smugglers who imported more than 4,000 cartons of untaxed cigarettes into New York, and seized 22,000 untaxed cigars worth a total of nearly $400,000, DA Richard Brown said yesterday.
The packages retrieved had either counterfeit tax stamps or no stamps at all, meaning the state was shortchanged by about $270,000 in revenue.
The smugglers purchased the cigarettes from other states with lower prices or imported them in suitcases from Haiti, Guyana, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Korea without declaring them at customs, Brown said.
Those arrested face up to 15 years in prison if convicted and would have to make restitution payments to the state Department of Taxation and Finance.