In May of this year, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers seized 150,000 cigarettes from two women disembarking a cruise ship in Los Angeles. The women had 10 pieces of luggage filled with smokes they'd apparently purchased in Mexico for which they had no import paperwork. Why would anybody try to bring over 700 cartons of cigarettes back from a Pacific cruise? Because the haul was worth an estimated $60,000, and the two would have had no problem selling their cargo to smokers desperate to beat California's high taxes. Those stiff levies drive buyers and money to the black market.

"Selling illegally imported cigarettes could yield high profits for underground vendors," commented Africa R. Bell, CBP Port Director of Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport, "due to the low cost of cigarettes

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