A smuggling ring operating in Michigan helped fund Hezbollah with profits from bootlegged cigarettes, counterfeit tax stamps, phony Viagra tablets and hijacked toilet paper, according to a federal indictment unsealed in Detroit on Wednesday. Ten of the suspects have been arrested or are expected to surrender to federal officials. The others are believed to be outside the United States.
The indictment, carrying a charge of global racketerring conspiracy, was issued almost two years ago and names 18 men allegedly involved in running a multimillion-dollar cigarette-trafficking ring out of Dearborn, Michigan from 1996 to 2004. It purchased low-taxed or untaxed cigarettes from North Carolina or a New York Indian reservation and resold them in Michigan and New York, making profits by evading state cigarette taxes, prosecutors said.
The indictment charges that portions of the profits made were given to Hezbollah. Some members of the enterprise charged a "Resistance Tax," being a set amount over black market price per carton of contraband cigarettes, which their customers were told would be going to Hezbollah. Some members of the enterprise also solicited money from cigarette customers for the orphans of martyrs program run by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to support the families of persons killed in suicide and other terrorist operations.
The gang’s operations, according to U.S. Attorney’s office, stretched from the Detroit area to New York, North Carolina, the Ivory Coast, China, Lebanon, Brazil and Paraguay.
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