How Big Tobacco nicked terror act

Firms accused of smuggling cigarettes feared language on laundering

Even before 9-11 the US refused to participate in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)-sponsored talks in Paris, May 2001, on ways to crack down on off-shore and other tax and money-laundering havens.

That just didn't make sense. Now, it begins to. The tobacco people don't want money laundering looked at very closely.

From subsidizing tobacco, to “forgiving” loans on tobacco which is waste after production, in effect buying it, the government is up to its ears in unsavory stuff, including inadvertently helping make possible the drug trafficking and terrorism.

(I wonder why the tobacco companies could be sued, but not the US government which subsidizes it.)

Arf