Alleged Big-Tobacco Smuggling Ties Probed

A federal grand jury is looking into charges that top cigarette companies have ties to smugglers who move billions of dollars of cigarettes across international borders without paying taxes, Newsweek magazine reported Sunday. Newsweek also said the World Bank and the World Health Organization will release a report next week detailing a three-year investigation of whether the tobacco industry has blocked international efforts to control tobacco. Newsweek said it does not know the names of the companies being investigated by the grand jury in North Carolina. But it said that Leslie Thompson, a former executive with Northern Brands International, a now-defunct export company owned by RJR Nabisco, was set to be questioned by federal prosecutors. The magazine said Thompson is accused of working with smugglers who shipped billions of R.J. Reynolds cigarettes to Canada, where black marketers awaited them. Newsweek said Thompson is serving a six-year term in federal prison after pleading guilty to money-laundering charges in connection with the smuggling case. The magazine cites R.J. Reynolds officials as saying the company had no knowledge that NBI or Thompson had been breaking the law.