Government undercover agents put 250 million illegal cigarettes on streets

January 22, 2010, 6:16AM

This undated photo released by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives shows a vehicle agents from the ATF and the Maryland Comptroller's office stopped on Interstate 95 in February 2005, recovering 1,600 cartons of cigarettes from the vehicle. ATF agents in Virginia have more aggressively pursued cigarette smugglers in the recent years in response to increased activity.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — Undercover ATF agents in Virginia have funneled more than 250 million cigarettes onto the nation’s streets in the past three years through black market sales targeting smugglers, an Associated Press review has found.

Authorities say the flood of government-provided smokes — a pack and a half for every man, woman and child in New York City, the smugglers’ main destination — leads them to organized crime rings and can even cut off financing for terrorists. The stings by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have yielded about five dozen federal arrests, albeit none on terror charges.

Many of those cigarettes undoubtedly wind up in the mouths of minors, since black market vendors have no reason to turn away teenage purchasers.

Despite that, government auditors and anti-tobacco groups want the ATF to do even more.

“Smuggling reduces prices, so it increases use, especially among kids, who are more price-sensitiveâ€