Stolen credit card, cigarette ring busted

When a man tried to use multiple credit cards before finding one that worked while buying cigarettes at Sheetz on Monday, an off-duty town officer paid attention.

That led to the arrest of three out-of-state men and the seizure of stolen credit cards and a cache of cigarettes, according to Woodstock police investigator Scott Thompson.

"We've been having an issue up there [at Sheetz]," he said Tuesday. "We've received several complaints in the past of some activity going on."

The activity involves stolen credit cards being used to buy cigarettes, which are then sold outside of Virginia, Thompson said.

"Some of them are gift cards, some of them are Visa debit cards and Mastercard debit cards," he said.

The U.S. Secret Service is working with the police in determining if the stolen credit cards belonged to local residents, Thompson said.

"It could reach nationwide, as far as our victims," he said.

Three men -- two from New York and one from Maryland -- have been charged with credit card fraud, he said, but would not provide their names, citing an ongoing probe.

An affidavit for a search warrant for Storage Solutions, 1520 Commerce Way, was filed in Winchester Circuit Court. It says that when one man was being arrested Monday, a key to the Holiday Inn at 333 Front Royal Pike, Winchester, was found in his wallet. Three men checked into two rooms using a gift card, the affidavit says.

Woodstock police Sgt. Tyrone Fields took a report of credit card fraud at Sheetz on Saturday, the affidavit says. It says a man tried to buy cigarettes with a credit card that was rejected, walked away from the counter and talked on his cell phone, and then came back with a different card with which he bought five cartons of cigarettes.

The clerk in the earlier case got the customer's license plate number, and the car was found parked at the Holiday Inn, the affidavit says. Inside the car was a receipt for the Storage Solutions, but nothing was seized from the unit, according to the warrant.

At the hotel, investigators seized more than 100 credit cards, about $21,000 worth of cigarettes, and electronic equipment, Thompson said. He said two cars the men were using were also seized.

The Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office and Frederick County Sheriff's Office assisted the Woodstock Police Department and the Secret Service in executing the search warrant, according to town police.

Identification of smuggled cigarette packs: Govt considering pasting stamps

The government is working on a proposal to paste stamps on cigarette packs to identify smuggled/non-duty paid packets for checking tax evasion, counterfeiting and smuggling.

Sources told Business Recorder here that the Tax Reform Co-ordination Group (TRCG) of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will discuss the issue of stamps on cigarette packs to help identify smuggled/non-excise paid cigarettes packs. The 7th meeting of the TRGC would now be convened at Regional Tax Office (RTO) Karachi on December 23, 2011. The revised agenda of the TRGC meeting circulated by the FBR on Tuesday includes proposal of tax stamping on cigarette packets.

When contacted, a tax expert explained that the government can introduce a scheme to affix quality assurance stamp on every packet of cigarettes to check illicit/counterfeit production of cigarettes. In the past, the FBR had done working on the concept of tax stamping on cigarettes during the tenure of ex-FBR Member Sales Tax Shahid Ahmed. At that time, the FBR had analysed the concept of tax stamping in Turkey, Malaysia and Bangladesh. Tax authorities worked on the concept of 'excise duty stamps' for the cigarettes units for checking tax evasion, counterfeiting and smuggling.

In the past, tax officials had studied different international tax models for controlling excise duty evasion in cigarette industry. In Bangladesh, the concept of tax stamping and band rolling of cigarettes was successful due to support of government and political will. Tax authorities of Bangladesh did not hesitate to conduct raids on shops selling smuggled or non-duty paid cigarettes. Turkey and Malaysia are not facing problems of tax evasion, but their main concern is smuggling and counterfeiting of cigarettes. Pakistani tax officials had visited these countries to examine the operations of the cigarettes industry. It was observed that tax stamping has been fully enforced in these countries, they said.

On the other hand, Pakistan is facing problems of enforcement and compliance, even if 'tax stamping' is introduced on the cigarettes packs. Leading manufacturers wanted level playing field, as the smuggled cigarettes are being sold as comparatively less price against the duty paid cigarette.

The expert said that tax stamping is the most appropriate way to check the illicit trade. It is a kind of a ticket, which could be pasted on each pack of cigarette. The idea is to differentiate between the duty paid and non-duty paid cigarettes. Under the excise laws, the board is legally empowered to restrict the cigarette and beverage manufacturers to affix 'excise duty stamp' on each item to be sold in the market.

Secondly, another option is to paste a 'tax marker' on each pack of cigarette. Tax marker is a 'dot spot' containing specialised ink. A special gun is used to paste it on cigarette pack. It is not simply a dot, as it has a special code, which could be seen through special way.

Thirdly, another option is to use band rolling on cigarette packs, as the provision is available in both sales tax and excise laws. It is a special kind of strip, which covers the whole cigarette pack. However, the project can not be implemented without approval of the Printing Corporation of Pakistan.

Fourthly, a holographic sticker could be prepared from 'fraud-proof paper' with graphic security features. The stamp, which looks like a sophisticated small size currency note, has holographic features. Just like a hologram, you can see different dimensions of the stamp, which is impossible to copy through counterfeiting. Three different types of security inks are being used in these stamps, tax expert added.

City shuts down roll-your-own cigarette shops in Chinatown and Staten Island

City lawyers have made a deal that will snuff out the city's first roll-your-own cigarette shops.

The pact will force the two shops — one in Chinatown, the other on Staten Island — to close by Feb. 1, and the owners have promised never to get in the business again. In exchange, the city will not press its lawsuit for back taxes.

“Our primary concern was to nip this practice in the bud. We were less concerned about how much taxes were evaded,” said Eric Proshansky, the city’s lead lawyer on the case.

The owners, who had a license to sell tobacco, have been selling paper tubes and loose tobacco, which are taxed at a much lower level than prepackaged cigarettes.

They allowed customers to use machines on their premises that stuffed the tobacco into the tubes.

Proshansky said the result was a “noisy, coffeehouse environment” as smokers lounged around waiting for the machines to do their work. A carton of cigarettes could take 45 minutes to make and cost $35 instead of the $100 charged for prepackaged cartons.

Shuttering the two shops, owned by Island Smokes, doesn’t solve the city’s problem. Proshansky said that since Island Smokes opened its first shop on Staten Island in April, five other “roll your own” shops have popped up: three on Staten Island and two in south Brooklyn.

The city has ordered them to close, but if they don’t, they too will be sued, he said.

Thief Caught On Camera Stealing Cigarettes

A thief was caught on camera with an armful of stolen cigarettes and authorities have asked the public for help in identifying him.
Lakeland police are looking for the man who broke into a business Nov. 23 and stole the merchandise.
Authorities said they have chosen to not release the name of the business where the crime took place.
Police said the man was driving a red or maroon pickup truck with an extended cab. If you recognize the man, please call authorities.

Dentist wants to make possession of cigarettes in Washington a felony

The health risks of cigarettes have been taught in schools and printed on the cigarette packages for decades. There is a statewide ban preventing people from lighting up in public places. Now, one dentist would like to prevent you from even holding a cigarette in the state of Washington.

"I care about people's health," said Dr. Ed Dolan, who is behind the cigarette ban initiative. "I'm hoping that this will help all of the citizens of Washington state live longer, healthier, happier lives and eliminate the diseases, pain and suffering caused by tobacco products."

Such a law, if it came in to existence, would likely illicit a lot of resistance from those who believe taking away their right to smoke is a violation of their civil liberties. So Dolan compares it to the seat belt law - a law that yes, infringes on civil liberties, but significantly increases the average life expectancy of someone living in Washington.

"I'm purely thinking about it from a health standpoint," Dolan told 97.3 KIRO FM's Dori Monson Show. He says he's sure the law will help save the lives of people who are currently smoking, and hopefully prevent future generations from shortening their lifespans.

If the sale of cigarettes is outlawed, and even the mere possession of cigarettes were to become a class C felony, as his petition proposes, Dolan does acknowledge that it treads on a slippery slope. When Dori suggested that if cigarettes are outlawed, then red meat and alcohol could be next, Dolan said he's not sure about what could happen regarding health concerns and laws.

For him, it's about the people affected by smoking related diseases and their families. He needs 300,000 signatures to get his initiative on the ballot.

Tobacco giant drops demand to see research on teenage smokers

The world's largest tobacco company has backed away from its demands to see thousands of confidential interviews with British teenagers gathered as part of a university research project into children's attitudes to smoking.

Philip Morris International, the makers of Marlboro, has quietly dropped its Freedom of Information request to see the interviews held by researchers at Stirling University, after the company was widely condemned following revelations by The Independent in September.

The tobacco company had to respond to the university's refusal to publish the interviews within 40 working days. Because Philip Morris has not responded within the required deadline, its two FoI requests have effectively lapsed – meaning that the company will now have to make a fresh application if it wants to pursue the matter.

"Over 40 days have elapsed since Philip Morris last communicated with the University of Stirling regarding research into smoking. On this basis we now regard that the correspondence on this particular request is now closed," the university said in a statement.

Philip Morris International attempted to make its first FoI request anonymously in September 2009, through the London law firm Clifford Chance. However, the Scottish information commissioner, Kevin Dunion, rejected the request on the grounds that Clifford Chance had to name its client – a legal clause not available under English law.

Under its own name, the tobacco giant then put in two further requests to Stirling's Institute for Social Marketing, led by Professor Gerard Hastings who said that Philip Morris wanted access to "everything we had ever done" on the attitudes and behaviour of children towards smoking and tobacco promotion.

"These are confidential comments about how youngsters feel about tobacco marketing. This is the sort of research that would get a tobacco company into trouble if it did it itself," Professor Hastings told The Independent this year.

The university initially refused the requests on the grounds that the claims were vexatious, which was rejected by Mr Dunion. It then claimed it would be too costly and time consuming, but Philip Morris even offered to pay for the added costs, an offer which the university refused.

Although the interviews are anonymised and the names of the children kept confidential, Professor Hastings said there was an understanding with the interviewees and their parents that the content of the interviews would remain confidential and would be shared only among university researchers.

Initiative launched to curb tobacco consumption in Gujarat

About 60 per cent males and 8.4 per cent females in Gujarat consume tobacco, according to the 2005-06 National Family Health Survey report. All indicators show that the trend of tobacco consumption across Gujarat has only gone up.

As per the Gujarat Cancer Research Institute report of 2008-09, in rural areas 36.04 per cent of the total registered cases of cancer in Ahmedabad were tobacco induced; while the same figure for urban areas was 36.67 per cent.
Considering the 22 per cent contribution of Gujarat to the national tobacco production and the increase in consumption trends, a project called Strengthening of Tobacco Control Efforts Through Innovative Partnerships and Strategies (STEPS) is being implemented by Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), a public-private initiative. STEPS aims to reduce the health and economic burden of India, contributing to the National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP).

Through STEPS, efforts are being made to control the use of tobacco among different age groups across six districts of Gujarat, namely Banaskantha, Rajkot, Kheda, Anand and Surat. Various activities under different modules would be taken up to keep a check and reduce tobacco consumption.

"Considering the fact that the initiation age for tobacco consumption in Gujarat is much early, one of the modules of STEPS involves intervening with the schools across the state in association with the department of education. This will help prevention of tobacco consumption at the grass-roots level. Additionally, at the rural level, STEPS plans to form a voluntary body - Community Against Tobacco (CAT) that will visit kiosks and monitor the tobacco consumption and sale," said state coordinator STEPS Mayur Trivedi.