Word: contraband
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...cigarettes are made in China each year (about 85% of the world's total), according to the country's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, which is now trying to snuff out the fakes. Last week, officials in Henan, China's second largest tobacco-growing province, torched $360,000 worth of contraband cigarettes...
...called to be a hero," he says. "The residents here don't feel protected." One man who's tried to fight back is Antonio Bassolino, Governor of the Campania region. When he was mayor of Naples in the 1990s, Bassolino led a campaign cracking down on small-time contraband cigarette vendors. Recalling a similar outbreak of bloodshed over contraband traffic in 1997, he says, "We broke a taboo back then by insisting that the guy selling cigarettes on the street corner wasn't some poor soul, but a sentry for the Camorra." The current violence, he thinks, is a call...
...global jihad, are exploiting this anger to launch attacks against the state. Others caution that the south has long been a violent place, with the police, military, gangsters and politicians fighting turf wars with one another over the black-market trade in gasoline, guns, narcotics and other contraband...
...meantime, 1st Cavalry commanders are trying unconventional techniques. When a raid turned up a huge cache of contraband cigarettes, Formica recognized an opportunity for outreach. He had the packs distributed with special wraps printed with hotline numbers, an exhortation to report suspicious characters and the promise of a reward. A smoker called in the first bit of intelligence last week, Formica says. "Here's something you don't hear every day," he says, "but that pack of cigarettes may have saved some lives." --With reporting by Christopher Allbritton/Baghdad
...Blackened Market Tobacco giant Philip Morris agreed to pay the E.U. $1.25 billion in final settlement of lawsuits alleging complicity in smuggling cigarettes to evade duties. The money will go to an E.U. fund against contraband tobacco...