(Staff) -- A 24-year-old Akwesasne man and a 22-year-old Hogansburg, N. Y. woman face charges for possession of 570,000 contraband cigarettes after being stopped by Cornwall police.
An officer pulled the pair over Thursday in a 2000 Ford Excursion sport-utility vehicle on Brookdale Avenue.
When the officer attempted to stop the vehicle, the driver accelerated.
The vehicle pulled over into a parking lot, allowing the officer to see cardboard boxes of contraband cigarettes inside the vehicle. The constable called for assistance from the Cornwall RCMP detachment.
The RCMP officers seized the SUV and 2,850 re-sealable bags of contraband cigarettes believed to have been manufactured in the United States and smuggled into Canada.
The driver and the passenger were both arrested, charged under the Excise Act 2001 for possession of a tobacco product not properly stamped, and released to appear in a Cornwall courtroom on Jan. 26.
Cornwall police issued the driver a Highway Traffic Act ticket for driving a motor vehicle with no license and no permit and a Compulsory Automobile Insurance Act ticket for failing to have an insurance card.
"The illicit tobacco trade presents a serious threat to public safety and health in Canada," said Sgt. Michael Harvey of the RCMP.
"According to recent threat assessments, approximately 105 organized crime groups of varying levels of sophistication are currently known to be involved in the illicit tobacco trade. Compounding the problem is that 69 per cent are also involved in drug trafficking, mainly marijuana and cocaine, and/or weapons trafficking."