Friday, November 23, 2012

Illegal cigarette tax cheats


From the NY Post:

A Queens mother and her son were arrested with 677 cartons of illegal Asian cigarettes and $132,000 in cash, authorities announced today.

Ying-Jian Lin, 48, and Xiao Lin, 23, face up to four years in prison for peddling the shady smokes, which are untaxed and don’t carry the required surgeon general warnings, according to a Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Investigators watched the son pick up the contraband cartons from a Flushing garage and carry them to a small grocery store where his mother was spotted selling the cigarettes, Brown said.

Authorities said they found the cash --- mostly in $50 and $100 bills --- in a safe-deposit box.

Brown said the pair would have cheated the city out of about $45,000 in taxes on the seized smokes alone.

12 comments:

Jerry Rotondi said...

Flushing is the home base for nefarious activity, once again. I'm not surprised.

That's why I no longer use "Flushing" in my return address anymore--prefering "Queens. N.Y." instead--not that "Queens" is top drawer.

It's better than "Flushing"--which most of our visitors assume--is just a low class dirty ghetto.

I'm tired of having to explain to them that not all of Flushing is like that--only sections of the downtown hub.

Anonymous said...

yea, hello, where is law enforcement? stand on the corner of main street and roosevelt ave for 5 secounds and watch the women in the middle of the street (literally) holding suit cases full of chinese cigerettes, there are at least 2 women there selling illegal cigs, all day long! selling them in broad day light! where are the media camereas???? I swear, downtown flushing is a lawless, tax free, free for all state!

Anonymous said...

No worry--Jimmy Meng has connection with the DA office and can get them off, for the price of a fruit basket.

Anonymous said...

Here in North Flushing late model cars deliver illegal cigarettes right to my Asian (Mostly Korean) neighbors homes. When the trunk is open it's full of cigarettes.
It's not only downtown Flushing that stinks of lawlessness it's spreading to all of Queens.

Anonymous said...

Making a 50 cent pack cost 13 dollars (12.50 taxes). What the hell did you expect? Remember Proabition didn't work either except more crime and more alcoholics

Anonymous said...

Well the lazy crooked (???) 109th PCT isn't doing much about the lawlessness.

Anonymous said...

It's a question of unpaid taxes...maybe even money laundering.
I don't give a flying f--k if someone wants to smoke possibly tainted bootleg Chinese cigarettes!

Anonymous said...

Late model limos deliver girls too.

Anonymous said...

Black markets always spring up when you tax something to death, the equivalent of making it illegal. Criminals profit. Along with crooked politicians (redundant, I know).

Anonymous said...

Obviously it's the wild wild west in the Asian community - everything goes law enforcement has no clue how to police them! Everyone seems to be driving late model Benz or Audi - I wonder how and why!

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...
Late model limos deliver girls too."

Yes they are using Craigslist and local newspapers to perform "Out-calls" and deliver the girls right to the John's house. Oldest profession in the world come to Flushing with a bang !

Anonymous said...

according to the NYS Dept. of Taxation & Finance ,the cigarette excise tax on one pack of 20 is $4.35., the highest in the nation.

the NYC excise tax is $1.50 +$4.35 = $5.85 tax /pack.

did not the lawyers (liars) win a class action law suit to make the cigarette companies pay for education in the public schools in nyc? why are the "pupils "a failure at a rate of 55% who do not graduate ?
and the 45% ,who do , can not find a job in nyc with it's 9-15 % unemployment rate.