NYC Reaches Agreement with Postal Service to Destroy Contraband Cigarettes – NBC New York (47)

NEW YORK – New York City and four states that have sued the US Postal Service announced a settlement Monday in which the agency agreed it would destroy cigarette packages illegally shipped to the United States from other countries.

The city and California had initially filed the lawsuit in 2019, and were joined in 2020 by Connecticut, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

“We were not going to stand idly by while foreign carriers skirted federal law in an effort to avoid billions in taxes and hook minors on nicotine,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. a statement.

In a statement, the Postal Service said that while it “believes that it has always fully complied with federal law regarding the handling of cigarette packages in international mail, we support the goals of the settlement agreement, and for that reason we have decided to resolve this lawsuit and to work cooperatively with all parties to this case to achieve those goals.”

Filing the lawsuit in federal court in Brooklyn, the plaintiffs said the Postal Service was not doing enough to enforce the Cigarette Trafficking Prevention Act of 2010, particularly as it relates to international mailing. The law prohibits the mailing of cigarettes in most cases.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs said that tens of thousands of packages shipped from other countries passed through the postal system for delivery, and said that when the packages were found, the agency would return them to the senders rather than destroy them.

As part of the settlement, the Postal Service agreed to take steps to ensure it was complying with PACT, including improving the way it conducted checks for contraband packages, as well as developing training for employees. .

The agency also agreed to destroy cigarette packages, rather than mail them back to senders, and to send letters to senders that the cigarettes cannot be mailed.

The “settlement obligates the US Postal Service to do its job to stop the flow of contraband foreign cigarettes into the United States,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said. “These bootleg cigarettes cost every state, including Connecticut, hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost tax revenue and hamper efforts to quit smoking.”

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