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• Illicit cigarettes fund terrorism 

VIDEO: This is The Man 

Continental Airlines passengers hold down smoking Saudi Yazeed Mohammed Abunayyan shouting "Allah is great" 

An unruly Saudi teen was held down and detained by fellow passengers aboard a Continental Airlines flight after he began shouting 'Allah is great' and making references to Osama bin Laden as he swung his fists at a flight attendant who told him he couldn't smoke an electronic cigarette aboard the plane Tuesday.

The flight had only just taken off from Portland, Oregon, bound for Houston, Texas, when Yazeed Mohammed Abunayyan ignored the 'No Smoking' sign and began to cause a ruckus. After the incident, the pilot turned the plane around and landed it back at Portland International Airport about 20 minutes after it lifted off.

When he boarded the plane in Portland, Abunayyan was free on $65,000 bail after being arrested Sunday night in a town 285 miles to the south following a 'Grand Theft Auto'-style police chase, during which he allegedly rammed two squad cars and tried to run down a pedestrian -- all while grinning wildly.

On Tuesday, when a flight stewardess asked Abunayyan to turn off his cigarette, passengers say he started screaming, punching at the woman and singing or muttering about dead Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

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Tobacco giant JTI quizzed over shipment to Syrian tycoon 'bankrolling Assad's terror' 

A tobacco giant behind three of the UK's leading brands is under investigation after millions of its cigarettes were shipped to a firm linked to a billionaire accused of playing a key part in suppressing the popular uprising in Syria.

The development has revived concerns about the ability of "big tobacco" to police its distribution networks – third party agents who move its product around the world.

Japan Tobacco International (JTI), which owns the Silk Cut, Mayfair and Benson & Hedges brands, faces questions over its relationship with a firm associated with Rami Makhlouf, who is subject to European Union and US sanctions.

Documents obtained by the Observer show that on 27 May 2011, JTI's Middle Eastern distributor, IBCS Trading, dispatched 90 million cigarettes to Syria Duty Free Shops (SDF) Ltd.

Makhlouf, a cousin of the country's president, Bashar al-Assad, was the main shareholder in SDF on 9 May 2011, the day the EU subjected him to sanctions for providing "funding to the regime allowing violence against demonstrators" and for being "an associate of Maher al-Assad", the feared commander of Syria's Republican Guard.

He has become the target of anti-Assad demonstrators in recent weeks as the UN attempts to agree a resolution on imposing further sanctions – strongly opposed by Russia and China.

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Alleged cigarette smugglers indicted in Charlotte  

Eleven men have been indicted in Charlotte and accused of conspiring to pay more than $7.5 million in cash for over 400,000 cartons of cigarettes they believed had been stolen.

Some of the suspects also are accused of laundering money through legitimate businesses they owned or controlled.

The men are charged with conspiring to receive and transport across North Carolina and South Carolina Marlboro cigarettes they thought had been stolen in Virginia and Tennessee.

But unknown to the defendants, they were dealing with undercover law enforcement agents and officers.

The cigarettes purchased during the sting had a wholesale value of more than $15 million. . . .

The indicted defendants: Ahmed Samy Hosny Kareem, also known as "Sammy," Kamal Zaki Qazah, also known as "Keemo," Tha'er Ismail Ayyad, also known as "Old Man" and "Wild Man," Wael Mahmoud Salem, also known as "Tony," Zafer Ramadan Kafozi, also known as "Uncle Jack," Ziad Hashem Najjar, also known as "Z," Murad Ayyad, also known as "Mike," Nasser Kamal Alquza, Khaled Fadel Ibrahim, Jose Calderon-Silver and Hesham Rahman. . . .

During a dinner meeting in Charlotte in January 2011, one of the suspects explained how he purchases cars in the United States and ships them overseas as a way to launder money.

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• KING: Feds burned by cigarette smuggling  

These challenging fiscal times demand that governments operate efficiently, in part by collecting taxes owed and cutting wasteful spending. Yet every day, the failure to strongly combat the growing crime of contraband cigarette smuggling deprives governments of billions of dollars in tax revenues -- siphoned off by terrorist and criminal organizations. . . .

The result of all this is that governments lose badly needed revenue. For example, in New York State, where an estimated 26 million packs of cigarettes are sold each month, the state Department of Health estimates that Albany loses $55 million-$99 million per month in uncollected cigarette taxes. That's $660 million-$1.2 billion per year.

Nationwide, the annual loss is estimated at $5 billion at the state level, and a further $3.8 billion loss at the federal level.

Disturbingly, the financial loss and budget effect are only part of the problem. Often the state's loss is terrorist organizations' gain. In 2008, under my leadership, a House Homeland Security Committee investigation found a terrifying nexus between cigarette smuggling and terrorism.

We uncovered far too many examples. . . .

For years, cigarette smuggling has presented a security threat that has not been addressed. With the revenue-starved governments across the country - including in New York -- facing huge shortfalls, there is even more incentive to address the problem. The era for tolerating cigarette smuggling with ineffective tax enforcement must end. That's why I cosponsored the Smuggled Tobacco Prevention Act.

With budget short falls and ill-gotten gains going to criminals - including U.S. enemies -- the federal and state governments, along with manufacturers, must prioritize the fight against smuggling and stop the diversion of needed revenue to terrorists and criminals. A coordinated response can counter a significant threat -- while covering the cost of better law enforcement and important homeland security programs.

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• Dawood Ibrahim, a business tycoon of Pakistan 

Underworld don-turned-terrorist Dawood Ibrahim's support to anti-India terror groups and his involvement in 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts are widely known. He heads a vast and sprawling illegal billion dollar empire.

As per the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Dawood's business turnover is over Rs 20,000 crore. His huge investments in the Karachi Stock Exchange and Pakistani construction companies are widely known. He has also made investments in malls, cement companies and an oil company in the Middle East.

Having started his underworld career with the little known Karim Lala gang in Mumbai decades ago, today Dawood controls a billion dollar empire spread across half the world. His billion dollar empire, called Axact, is based out of a building in the Defence housing area of Karachi, Pakistan's business capital.

In 2009, the infamous D-company's chief was ranked number 50 in the Forbes' list of The World's Most Powerful People. . . .

Dawood's syndicate is involved in large scale drug-running in the United Kingdom and western Europe. His tobacco products, sold under the brand name Fire, are a rage in Russia, the Middle East and Afghanistan. . . .

With his business acumen, Dawood has been able to find a safe sanctuary in India's neighbourhood.

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Cigarette smuggler jailed for failing to pay £500k order 

A convicted cigarette smuggler has been jailed for three years for failing to pay a £500,000 confiscation order.

Aiden Francis Grew from Benburb Street in Blackwatertown was arrested and jailed on Tuesday.

The 55-year-old had pleaded guilty in 2008 to evading duty on almost five million cigarettes. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment suspended for two years.

He was ordered to pay £500,000, which if not paid, would result in jail time.

The conviction related to a joint police and customs operation in 2005 which recovered almost 16m cigarettes at Battleford Road near Armagh City. . . .

Grew has previously been accused in court in the Republic of being a member of the Real IRA, but the charge was withdrawn in 2004.

In the mid-1980s he served a 15-year sentence for his part in an IRA landmine attack on UDR soldiers in Co Armagh.

Two of his brothers, Seamus and Dessie, were killed in two separate securoty force shootings.

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9/11 Responders, Workers Still Suffer an Excess of Illnesses 

First responders and workers at the World Trade Center site right after 9/11 continue to suffer an excess of physical and mental ills, including a possible increase in their risk for cancer.

Many rescue and recovery workers had some kind of physical or mental health problem nine years after their heroic efforts at the site, according to one of three studies appearing in a special Sept. 1 issue of The Lancet.

And people who were either working or living in lower Manhattan at the time of the attack had a 10 percent increased risk in cancer. Although it's unusual to see a spike in cases so soon, the authors of this second study do believe that the increased incidence is likely a result of carcinogens in the dust that filled the air after the attacks on the World Trade Towers. . . .

But the fact that the respiratory ailments are persisting is a "worrisome sign," Landrigan said. "It may be the forerunning of chronic lung disease in the future."

Silvers said that people who haven't already had symptoms are unlikely to develop them this far out in time, but it's possible that who have had lingering symptoms might see more problems later on, such as lung or stomach cancer. . . .

The fact that firefighters who hadn't been exposed to the toxic dust and fumes from the World Trade Center had a lower incidence of cancer than the general population was to be expected, given that these individuals tend to be in better health than the average man or woman.

Although there seemed to be a slight trend toward increased risk in certain types of cancer, including stomach, colon and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, people who had been near the WTC disaster had a 58 percent decreased risk of lung cancer.

Again, this may be due to the good health of firefighters to begin with. The nine firefighters who did develop lung cancer were all smokers.

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Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants Urges Drug Makers And Manufacturers To Get Aggressive About Global Counterfeiting, The Government Won't Do It For You 

The Global Piracy & Counterfeiting Consultants is urging legitimate pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers of most types, along with tobacco companies to get real serious about global counterfeiting, and piracy. . . .

While China remains by a light year the worlds biggest counterfeiter, especially when it comes to any type of drugs, or cigarettes, we are extremely worried about Islamic terrorists getting into the drug business. In this instance we don't think the motivation will be profit-we think the motivation will be to kill completely innocent US, or European citizens, who foolishly think the Internet is a safe way to buy drugs." http://GP-CC.Com

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Feds Release Identity of Service Man Caught with Explosives  

U.S. Army Private First Class Christopher Eric Wey was arrested and charged today, for attempting to carry an explosive device on a United Airlines flight from Yuma to Los Angeles on Wednesday, July 13th.

During a standard Transportation Security Administration screening, the Yuma International Airport security officers detected existing explosives in Wey's luggage. TSA personnel discovered one-half ounce of C4 explosives hidden inside a tobacco can.

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US anti-terrorism law finds first victim...of Chinese origin 

The anti-terrorism law, passed in the USA after 9/11 attacks, has found its first victim in the face of a 49-year-old Chinese nations. A court of Los Angeles sentenced the man to 25 years for the attempt to smuggle a batch of surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles from China to the USA.

Yi Qing Chen was convicted in October of 2010 on charges of drug trafficking and distribution of counterfeit cigarettes. In accordance with the sentence, Chen will have to pay $520,000 of fine to Philip Morris for the import of counterfeit products. More importantly, the investigation revealed that the ethnic Chinese was trying to sell portable QianWei-2 (QW-2, export name - Vanguard 2) missile complexes of Chinese production to an undercover FBI officer.

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Calif. man gets 25 years for conspiring to smuggle Chinese missiles 

On the surface, Yi Qing Chen appeared to be a straight-laced businessman exporting plastic junk from the U.S. to China.

Secretly, Chen was a smuggler willing to sneak into the U.S. whatever would fit into 40-foot shipping containers - be it fake Marlboros, or ultimately, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles that could target F-15 or F-16 fighter jets, authorities say.

Chen, who was convicted last October of trafficking in counterfeit cigarettes, distributing drugs, and conspiring to import the missiles, was sentenced Monday to 25 years in federal prison.

The 49-year-old Rosemead, Calif., man became the first to be convicted under a 2004 anti-terrorism statute that outlawed the importation of missile systems made to target aircraft, enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks . . .

The FBI-led operation that led to Chen's conviction - dubbed "Smoking Dragon" - began in 2002 with a tip about a cigarette-smuggling ring.

An undercover agent gained the group's trust by helping clear shipments of counterfeit cigarettes through customs. Chen and his partner, Chao Tung Wu, began talking to the agent of plans to manufacture high-quality methamphetamines in Vietnam, and later, of smuggling weapons from China to the U.S. in shipping containers, according to prosecutors.

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California man sentenced to 25 years in prison for smuggling missiles into the U.S. 

A Southern California man on Monday was sentenced to 25 years in prison for smuggling many items including surface-to-air missiles into the U.S., prosecutors said.

Yi Qing Chen, 49, of Rosemead, California, was convicted by a federal jury on a series of federal charges related to schemes to smuggle many items into the United States last October.

The defendant was found guilty of five felony counts: conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine, distribution of cocaine, trafficking in counterfeit cigarettes (approximately 800,000 cases), trafficking in contraband cigarettes, and conspiracy to import missile systems designed to destroy aircraft.

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Man gets 25 years for missile-smuggling plot 

The first person indicted under a federal anti-terrorism law adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks was sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison for attempting to smuggle anti-aircraft missiles into the United States from his native China.

Yi Qing Chen of Rosemead was convicted in October of attempting to ship the shoulder-fired QW2 missiles as well as launch and operational hardware to a man who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent. . . .

Chen was also convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine and of trafficking in counterfeit and contraband cigarettes. He was ordered to pay $520,000 to tobacco company Philip Morris USA.

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