Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, the top seller of the menthol cigarettes favored by most black smokers, is seizing on the hot button issue of police harassment of blacks to counter efforts by public health advocates to restrict menthol sales.
Lorillard Tobacco gave campaign cash to half of all black members of Congress, as opposed to just one in 38 non-black Democrats, according to an analysis by FairWarning.
Black market sales of cigarettes are costing states millions in tax revenue, and ruthless criminal gangs are orchestrating the illicit trade, according to a report by NPR. In California alone, an estimated $182 million a year is lost in unpaid excise taxes on cigarettes. The trade is fueled by wide [...]
Why British American released papers showing possible links to contraband sales remains a mystery. GUILDFORD, England — This handsome town south of London is steeped in history. An 11th-century castle built by William the Conqueror overlooks the village center from a lovely hilltop park. The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better [...]
Rogue employee or Big Tobacco fall guy? Les Thompson tells tales from the vortex of the Canadian smuggling scandal. Les Thompson was a self-made man. He grew up poor in a small town in Ontario and got no further than high school. Still, he fashioned a nice career in the [...]
Courts: Legal experts say Lewis Kaplan was not required to disclose his background or to disqualify himself in cigarette smuggling suit. Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan was part of the 2-1 majority that gave the tobacco industry one of its biggest legal victories in recent years--a ruling upholding dismissal of [...]
Tobacco Memos Show Overseas Price Fixing Philip Morris and British-American Tobacco, the world's two biggest tobacco companies, secretly joined forces to fix cigarette prices and divide markets in Argentina, Venezuela and other Latin American countries, according to internal documents that explicitly describe the deals and the involvement of some of [...]
