California and New York sue US Postal Service for cigarette smuggling

California and New York sued the US Postal Service. These states accuse the service of delivering tens of thousands of cigarette packs from foreign countries., claiming that smugglers abroad evade taxes, and postal workers do not pay any attention to what is happening. Writes about it CBS News.

Фото: Depositphotos

In a lawsuit filed with the Brooklyn Federal Court, the postal service is accused of supplying cigarettes from Vietnam, China, Israel and other countries. Failure to comply with federal law banning the delivery of cigarettes by mail costs California an average of 19 million dollars a year in tax revenue and New York more than 21 million dollars.

The lawsuit states that it is necessary in court to force the postal service to intercept and destroy parcels containing cigarettes.

“Cigarette smuggling is not only a health hazard to our citizens, but also a detriment to our state’s economy,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

The postal service does not comment on active litigation.

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“Cigarette smuggling doesn’t just break the law—it puts the health of countless Americans at risk and enriches terrorists and organized crime,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Yet, despite all this, our country's own postal service ignored it. We intend to be the ones to end this."

Ignoring Federal Law

The failure of government officials to comply with the Cigarette Trafficking Prevention Act “impedes every congressional goal,” including its desire to prevent terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda from reaping the benefits of mail-order cigarettes .

George M. Pestana, the current lawyer for the corporation in New York, said the Postal Service (USPS) ignored a warning from its inspector general that she was breaking the law, in some cases returning illegal consignments to senders rather than destroying them.

Authorities in New York and California said that "the highest level USPS officials have known for years about the illegal transport of USPS and the delivery of cigarettes across the country."

“The Postal Service turned a blind eye to the illegal movement of cigarettes through its facilities, undermining our health laws and causing millions of dollars in tax losses for New York,” Pestana said.

“USPS knows or has reasonable grounds to believe that a package contains cigarettes when someone states on a publicly accessible website or advertisement that they will mail cigarettes in exchange for payment,” the lawsuit states.

Millions of cigarettes smuggled

The lawsuit states that mail-order cigarette sales have skyrocketed in online stores. The number of Internet vendors selling cigarettes and tobacco in the United States in 2000 was around 40, and by 2005 their number had risen to 500.

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According to authorities, 6 million packs of cigarettes are smuggled by mail every year to California and 5 million packs to New York.

The number was estimated during inspections carried out in 2018 by investigators at the John F. Kennedy Brooklyn International Post Center. The audit concluded that more than 100 000 boxes of cigarettes at the facility were intended for 48 states.

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