Many may think that buying and selling contraband tobacco is harmless, but police warn that contraband tobacco is directly linked to organized crime.
There have been a number of high-profile contraband tobacco busts in the province in recent years, including Project Bourbon which RCMP called the largest seizure of cocaine and tobacco in the province. Ten people were arrested and millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine and contraband cigarettes were seized.
Some of the items seized during Project Bourbon (RCMP)
A 23-year-old man was arrested and charged earlier this month following an RNC investigation that resulted in the seizure more than a million dollars’ worth of contraband cigarettes along with cocaine, pills and other illicit substances.
Items seized by RNC (Royal Newfoundland Constabulary)
Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco and former Deputy Commissioner with the Ontario Provincial Police, Rick Barnum says the trafficking of contraband tobacco goes hand in hand with drugs and weapons for organized crime.
“It’s a billon dollar business now across the country for organized crime groups” says Barnum “seeing contraband tobacco alongside all types of illicit narcotics and firearms, and girls that are being trafficked, it’s not a surprise to me unfortunately.”
Barnum says all of the contraband bound for Newfoundland on tractor trailers come from Ontario and Quebec.
He says it’s manufactured in Ontario or southwestern Quebec in Kahnawake, “and 90 per cent of that is coming from Ontario. It leaves Ontario by the tractor trailerful, heading for the east coast. Last summer we had a couple seizures of tractor trailers full of contraband cigarettes. Each one of those tractor trailers represents over one million dollars of pure profit for the organized crime groups that are moving that contraband across the country.”
