5 men from western Manitoba arrested in connection to contraband cigarette scheme: Brandon police
The recent bust is the 3rd cigarette bust in Brandon, Man., within the past year
Five middle-aged men from western Manitoba were arrested last week in relation to a contraband cigarette scheme that could have resulted in a tax revenue loss of nearly $275,000 for the provincial government, police say.
The Brandon Police Service's major crime section and investigators from Manitoba Finance teamed up for a six-week investigation that revealed a group of Manitobans were smuggling tobacco cigarettes into the province.
"These cigarettes are not cigarettes that you could buy here in Manitoba under any circumstances," Ronald Bell, supervisor of the Manitoba finance taxation special investigations unit, told reporters Wednesday.
"They're not legal for sale, they're not manufactured at a legal manufacturing facility, so you don't know what you're buying. You're not just buying what you think are cigarettes.
"You're buying stuff that could be made in somebody's garage with tobacco droppings that have been were swept off the floor."
On April 23, a combined 14 investigators from BPS and the taxation unit intercepted a shipment of illegal cigarettes in the rural municipality of Whitehead, an area just west of Brandon, Man. Five men were arrested and three vehicles and three trailers were seized.
Police searched the vehicles and trailers Tuesday, seizing 92 cases of unmarked contraband tobacco cigarettes that each contained 10,000 cigarettes, police say.
Over 24 kilograms of illegal marijuana and over $25,000 were also seized, police say.
The cigarettes amounted to a potential tax revenue loss of $274,000 to the Manitoba government, said Bell.
The five arrested men ranged from 46 to 60 years old. Four of the men were from Brandon, while one was from Gilbert Plains, Man., a town 275 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, near Dauphin.
Each man was charged criminally for possession of unauthorized stamped tobacco. They were also each charged under Manitoba's Tax Administration and Miscellaneous Taxes Act for possessing greater than 25 units of unmarked tobacco.
The man from Gilbert Plains was also charged under the federal Cannabis Act for possession for the purpose of distributing, and criminally for possessing proceeds of crime.
The men were released from custody but will appear in court some time in July, police said.
If convicted, the arrested men could face triple tax penalties that total $823,000, said Bell.
There have been two other large cigarette busts in Brandon within the past year. The cigarettes seized in the three busts combined amount to over $1.5 million in potential tax revenue loss, said Bell.
The bust announced Wednesday has no known links to those previous incidents, he said, but believe the tobacco originates from the same place: Six Nations First Nation, a reserve just south of Hamilton, Ont.
BPS will hold on to the seized marijuana. Manitoba taxation will retain the tobacco until the court case is over, then it will eventually be destroyed.