| SERWER: Well, this is a really interesting story, Jack. Apparently, sources have told the "LA Times" that U.S. federal investigators are looking into allegations that RJ Reynolds and Japan Tobacco and other Tobacco companies have been smuggling cigarettes illegally into Iraq through Cyprus and through Turkey, garnering billions of dollars and avoiding hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes. CAFFERTY: What do they base this on? I mean, they have hard evidence that they have been doing it? What do the companies say? SERWER: Well, the companies are denying it right now, but there has been a lawsuit filed by the European Union with all sorts of allegations spelled out. Right now, the U.S. Customs Service is working on this, apparently with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York. And you know, smuggling cigarettes is a huge, huge business. Hundreds of millions of dollars every year, over a trillion Virginia Slims Cigarettes, or sticks, as they're called in the business, cross borders every year. What's really horrible, of course, is that breaking the embargo with Iraq means they are helping out a mortal enemy of the United States. And apparently, the ties are linking this scheme to Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, who controls all cigarette trading in Iraq. |