By Alexander Dworkowitz
As a result of tighter security at Kennedy Airport, five Flushing men were arrested last week after police seized nearly 700,000 contraband Chinese cigarettes from their home, the Queens district attorney said.
In total, the police took away $190,000 worth of cigarettes of what was estimated to be a $3 million-a-year business, according to DA Richard Brown.
“As one of the largest seizures of illegal cigarettes in recent history, these arrests are very gratifying,” said New York State Tax and Finance Commissioner Arthur J. Roth. “We are committed to finding and dismantling these illegal bootlegging operations and prosecuting those who reach into the pockets of honest businessmen.”
The five men — Quian Huang, 29; Ke Zhong Gao, 59; Jing Liang Liu, 42; Jian Zhang, 31; and Yiping Chen, 42, the alleged ringleader — were charged with tax evasion and each face seven years in prison if convicted, said the district attorney. All the men lived at 43-34 Burling St.
According to Brown, the investigation began in December when custom officials amid heightened security measures at JFK found a container full of Chinese brand cigarettes that lacked a New York state tax stamp.
Federal officials then began to monitor packages mailed from mainland China to the Flushing house, whose address was indicated on the container, said the district attorney.
After a postman delivered a package to the Flushing house last Thursday, investigators produced a search warrant and found 3,489 cartons of Chinese cigarettes stacked in the one story, wood-frame ranch house, which was used as a warehouse, said the district attorney.
Brown said the cigarettes, bearing names such as Stone Forest and Peony, were to be delivered to various Chinese-American stores throughout the metropolitan area where stronger, nicotine-enhanced Chinese cigarettes can be sold for as much as $55 a carton.
One of the defendants allegedly told investigators that the parcels contained toys for Chinese New Year, said the district attorney.
U.S. Postal Service inspectors indicated that the suspected ring had been in business for about a year, shipping 1,200 cartons a week of contraband cigarettes from China through John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Brown said cigarette-smuggling is a multimillion-dollar industry.
“It cheats taxpayers who must dip into their pockets to pay higher taxes,” he said. “And it cheats government as well by fueling an underground economy which does not pay much needed state and city taxes.”
Reach reporter Alexander Dworkowitz by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 141.
