Editor’s Note: ATF’s Tobacco Enforcement Fact Sheet which explains that the agency becomes involved in tobacco diversion cases that have “a nexus to violent crime” is available here.
From: The Examiner | Serving Eastern Jackson County, Missouri
By Karl Zinke
Independence, Mo.
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Craig Sheffler, who owned Cheap Tobacco Wholesale in Independence, previously admitted that he purchased more than $17 million in cigarettes from the ATF undercover operation and transported them to New York without prior approval by the New York Department of Taxation and Finance and without paying the $4.35 per pack excise tax. The cigarettes – approximately 620,600 cartons – then were sold on the Indian reservations at a considerable discount. The total New York state excise tax lost was more than $8 million. Sheffler admitted in his plea agreement that the loss exceeded $7 million.
Nicole Sheffler admitted that she collected and transported funds used to buy the contraband cigarettes from an ATF undercover operation. She collected the money from customers of Cheap Tobacco Wholesale and cashed checks at a check cashing business. She then delivered the money to the ATF undercover warehouse in Kansas City for the cigarette purchases by Cheap Tobacco Wholesale.
