All the Tea Bags in China

Had Hollywood been in charge of casting I would have never been offered the role…a white man targeting an Asian organized crime syndicate. But Hollywood and the bad guys didn’t understand my “motivation.” If I sold myself as a criminal I got to stay out of the FBI offices for the duration of the case. That’s a better incentive than any two-picture deal with promises of Red Carpet awards. 

In the first few meetings I successfully convinced my targets I was “bad.” Thus began a three-year undercover assignment concluding with dozens of arrests for crimes involving surface-to-air missiles, counterfeit U.S. currency, fake Viagra, phony blue jeans, ecstasy, crystal meth, and an assortment of other contraband. But it all began with counterfeit cigarettes manufactured overseas. The bad guys were smuggling the illegal “name-brand” cigarettes into the United States. I guess the politically correct term would be “undocumented cigarettes,” but their activities avoided all kinds of federal and state taxes. Not only were the cigarettes fake but so were the tax stamps on each pack…made to resemble the stamps for whatever state where the fakes were to be sold. Their products were good. The packaging looked authentic and the tax stamps appeared real.  (more…)