New York, California sue postal service over smuggled cigarettes

NEW YORK (AP) — California and New York City sued the U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday to stop tens of thousands of cigarette packages from being mailed from foreign countries to United States residents, saying the smugglers are engaging in tax evasion while postal workers look the other way.

The lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court blames the Postal Service for deliveries from Vietnam, China, Israel and other countries, saying the failure to enforce a federal law aimed at banning cigarette mail deliveries costs California an average of $19 million annually in tax revenues and New York City and state over $21 million each year.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to force the Postal Service to intercept and destroy packages believed to contain cigarettes.

The Postal Service does not comment on active litigation, spokesman David Coleman said in an email.

“Cigarette smuggling doesn’t just break the law — it endangers the health of countless Americans and enriches terrorists and organised crime,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a news release.

“Yet despite all of this, our nation’s own postal service has ignored the practice and enabled one of the biggest killers in our country. It needs to end, and we intend to be the ones to end it.”

“Accepting and delivering contraband cigarettes is not only a health hazard for our citizens but a detriment to our state’s economy,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said.

Georgia M. Pestana, New York City’s acting corporation counsel, said the Postal Service has ignored its inspector general’s warning that it violates the law by, in some cases, returning illegal shipments to senders instead of destroying them.

“The Postal Service has turned a blind eye to the illegal shipment of cigarettes through its facilities, undermining our health laws and causing millions of dollars of tax losses to New York City,” Pestana said.

The lawsuit said smugglers capitalise on widely varying tax rates on cigarettes, while the Postal Service ignores cigarette shipments sometimes labelled as “cigarettes” and fails to ban commercial cigarette shippers identified by the US Justice Department.

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