$100G in cigarettes with fake tax stamps seized in Linden; were headed to Hudson: cops

More than $100,000 worth of smokes and nearly $280,000 in cash was seized in a crackdown on a ring that forged the stamp on cigarette packs to avoid paying taxes, officials said.
Based on the scale of the enterprise, it is thought the state may have lost more than $1 million in tax revenue, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said.
This type of operation "generates a tremendous profit for the defendants and, of course, is taking money from the citizens of New Jersey," said DeFazio, whose office conducted the investigation with the New Jersey departments of Homeland Security and Treasury. "This money would have gone into the treasury of the state and it is diverted instead to the pockets of these defendants."
Investigators believe the group regularly bought large quantities of untaxed cigarettes in other states at significantly lower prices than in New Jersey and transport them to a storage facility in Linden, DeFazio said.
They opened each carton and affixed a forged New Jersey or New York tax stamp to each pack before reloading the cartons and selling them at bargain prices to stores in Northern New Jersey and New York, DeFazio said.
During searches last week investigators also seized thousands of counterfeit tax stamps, DeFazio said, adding that a clothing iron was apparently used to affix the stamps to packs of cigarettes.
On Thursday investigators arrested Elizabeth residents Rajae Awad, 39; Anwar Ghani, 46; and Jamal Abbadi aka Jamal Alyazjeen, 40; as well as Ahmad Aldabesheh, 48, of Mohegan Lake, N.Y., DeFazio said.
They were charged with theft by deception, forgery and conspiracy and face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, DeFazio said
Those arrested are all natives of Jordan, DeFazio said, adding: "There is evidence that at least some of the money generated was forwarded to Jordan, but there is no reason to think it went to any sort of terrorist activity."
The Jordanian connection is the reason the NJ Department of Homeland Security joined the probe.
The investigation began months ago when officials got a tip that cigarettes with counterfeit tax stamps were being sold in Jersey City stores, DeFazio said. Surveillance in Jersey City led to the Linden storage facility, and to surveillance at other locations, DeFazio said.
Investigators believe a large portion of the cigarettes were purchased in North Carolina and detectives traveled there this weekend and recovered records at a storage facility believed to have been a staging site for the ring, DeFazio said. The prosecutor said vans were used to transport the cigarettes to New Jersey.