CORNWALL -The federal government has announced $7 million in funding to create and operate a new law enforcement team aimed at squashing the contraband tobacco trade.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews unveiled the funding, which will be doled out over three years, in Montreal on Friday for a new arm of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit known (CFSEU) as the Contraband Tobacco Team (CTT).
The new team is scheduled to be up and running within the next year, but the feds have only committed to keep the unit together for three years.
CFSEU is a multi-agency unit made up of law enforcement partners from various levels including federal, provincial and municipal agencies.
Its objectives are to combat the activities of organized crime as it relates to the illegal tobacco smuggling, conduct mid to high-level investigations aimed at the dismantling and disrupting of illegal tobacco distribution networks and assist other RCMP units in maintaining border integrity by combating the illegal smuggling of tobacco into Canada by criminal organizations.
The CTT will also seek to increase understanding in the local communities of organized crime's involvement in illegal tobacco and other illegal activities.
The CFSEU will focus its efforts within the greater St. Lawrence Seaway Valley, a region which encompasses the area from Cornwall to Valleyfield, Que, where the vast majority of illegal tobacco is smuggled from the U.S. side of Akwesasne First Nation through Cornwall and the surrounding area.
Recent intelligence has identified approximately 175 organized crime groups involved in the contraband tobacco market in Canada.
Nearly three quarters of the organized crime groups were also involved in a wide range of other forms of criminality, such as drug trafficking, mainly mari juana and cocaine, and weapons trafficking.
The CFSEU plans to build on past enforcement successes by the RCMP and its law enforcement partners, such as the 25 organized crime groups disrupted between April 2008 and May 2009 and the 975,000 cartons of illegal cigarettes seized nationwide in 2009.