Contraband Tobacco

Revelations about British American Tobaccco and smuggling

On Jan. 31st, 2000, the prestigious English daily The Guardian, in co-operation with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, published a major exposé on British American Tobacco (BAT) and cigarette smuggling in numerous countries. This exposé, the fruits of many months of work by a team of investigative journalists, is available on the Internet, along...

Tobacco insider talks: major firms were deeply involved in cross-border smuggling, former executive says

Feb. 24, 1999, was not a banner day for Les Thompson. Arrested by U.S. Customs agents in the Ontario city of Windsor, cuffed and thrown into jail, the RJR-Macdonald sales executive suddenly became the slick, hard-driving, unscrupulous face of big tobacco. U.S. prosecutors claimed they had nabbed the man behind a billion-dollar tobacco-smuggling network that...