ATF running a cigarette selling operation
Working from an office suite behind a Burger King in southern Virginia, operatives used a web of shadowy cigarette sales to funnel tens of millions of dollars into a secret bank account. They werent known smugglers, but rather agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The operation, not authorized under Justice Department rules, gave agents an off-the-books way to finance undercover investigations and pay informants without the usual cumbersome paperwork and close oversight, according to court records and people close to the operation.
The secret account is at the heart of a federal racketeering lawsuit brought by a collective of tobacco farmers who say they were swindled out of $24 million. A pair of A.T.F. informants received at least $1 million each from that sum, records show.
Good to see they don’t just screw over gun owners.
February 22nd, 2017 at 7:10 pm
And now apparently the IRS is going after the tobacco farmers for ‘taxes due’… sigh…
February 22nd, 2017 at 7:56 pm
And thus we understand the impetus behind all alcohol, drug, tobacco, and firearm restrictions, and other government intervention schemes, and why government types will be the last hold-outs when it comes to repealing them. Think of all the lost government jobs alone, to say nothing of the lost opportunities for corruption, should we return to a free society. We’d all be better off, except for the poor parasites that make their living eating off of the substance of productive human beings.
DRAIN THE SWAMP! Let the parasites turn to petty crime, for which they are best suited. We know how to deal with that. Better yet, let them enter the real world, where one must serve others in peaceable, voluntary exchange for one’s living.
February 22nd, 2017 at 8:15 pm
Past time to abolish the ATF.
February 22nd, 2017 at 8:57 pm
BATF have always been gangsters with badges, all that Untouchables bulls**t to the contrary.
February 22nd, 2017 at 9:50 pm
And this puts a bit more credibility to the stories that the DEA is a major ‘playa’ in the narcotics business.
February 22nd, 2017 at 9:55 pm
Government declares it’s paperwork laws onerous, ignores the law for profit.
I, for one, would like to welcome ATF to the free and capital markets. We’re almost to that much anticipated Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms convenience store people keep talking about. Although, I suspect, that this particular version is not what they had in mind.
February 23rd, 2017 at 1:31 pm
WAY past time to abolish the ATF… say didn’t they do something called “Fast & Furious” just a while ago??? Smuggled and got people killed?