SkinsFanLarry
Craft Beer Addict!
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2008
- Messages
- 14,355
It is hard to imagine the amount of money that has been lost, and just how far-reaching this illegal operation truly is, said Jefferson County (Al.) Sheriff Mike Hale in the aftermath of the arrest of two men caught counterfeiting cigars.
In this case, the cigars being copied were two of the best-selling machine-made brands on the U.S. market, Swisher Sweets and Black & Mild. The case was opened last March when a customer complained to Jacksonville, Florida-based Swisher International about problems with a pack of Swisher Sweets Cigarillos; the company recognized that the returned cigars were, in fact, fakes. According to a story on the arrests in the Birmingham News, Swisher builds in security identifiers into its packaging just for such situations.
Apparently, the arrested men Jegil Wilissac Dugger, age 30 from McCalla, Al., and Faisal Hassan Elnaham, 32, from Homewood, Al. were the leaders of a ring which imported cheap cigars from India under the brand name Dank and then had Swisher Sweets and Black & Mild packaging made up in China, assembling the final product at multiple sites in Jefferson County, including a bingo hall! Distribution of the fake cigars was apparently spread throughout the Southeast.
Dugger and Elnaham were arrested on July 23 during an operation which included searches of eight different locations, including two convenience stores, two bingo halls and four residences. Thousands of counterfeit cigars (worth about $75,000 at retail), packaging material, computers and weapons were seized. The Jefferson County Sheriffs Office is asking anyone who purchased such cigars to call them at (205) 731-2769. The investigation is continuing and additional arrests are possible.
Both men were charged with multiple counts of theft of a trademark and were jailed with bail set at $600,000. Elnaham posted bond and was freed pending trial last Friday while Dugger remained in jail; he was already out on bond for promoting gambling at the time of his arrest.
The scale of the enterprise was what stunned Sheriff Hale. It has to impact the bottom line in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in lost revenues to the company, tax revenues and on down, he said. He also noted that the U.S. Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service and Food & Drug Administration were being notified of the case, raising the possibility of significant additional charges to be added.
Naturally, the folks at Swisher were irritated about the entire matter. The customer unknowingly purchased a counterfeit Swisher Sweet Cigarillos cigar, found it to be of poor quality, and became disappointed with the Swisher Sweet brand, said Swisher president J. Thomas Ryan. That disappointment in Swisher has the potential to ruin the brands reputation.
Fortunately for Swisher, that angry customers return of what he thought was a legitimate Swisher cigar led to the break-up of only the latest in a continuing line of cigar-counterfeiting cases.
In this case, the cigars being copied were two of the best-selling machine-made brands on the U.S. market, Swisher Sweets and Black & Mild. The case was opened last March when a customer complained to Jacksonville, Florida-based Swisher International about problems with a pack of Swisher Sweets Cigarillos; the company recognized that the returned cigars were, in fact, fakes. According to a story on the arrests in the Birmingham News, Swisher builds in security identifiers into its packaging just for such situations.
Apparently, the arrested men Jegil Wilissac Dugger, age 30 from McCalla, Al., and Faisal Hassan Elnaham, 32, from Homewood, Al. were the leaders of a ring which imported cheap cigars from India under the brand name Dank and then had Swisher Sweets and Black & Mild packaging made up in China, assembling the final product at multiple sites in Jefferson County, including a bingo hall! Distribution of the fake cigars was apparently spread throughout the Southeast.
Dugger and Elnaham were arrested on July 23 during an operation which included searches of eight different locations, including two convenience stores, two bingo halls and four residences. Thousands of counterfeit cigars (worth about $75,000 at retail), packaging material, computers and weapons were seized. The Jefferson County Sheriffs Office is asking anyone who purchased such cigars to call them at (205) 731-2769. The investigation is continuing and additional arrests are possible.
Both men were charged with multiple counts of theft of a trademark and were jailed with bail set at $600,000. Elnaham posted bond and was freed pending trial last Friday while Dugger remained in jail; he was already out on bond for promoting gambling at the time of his arrest.
The scale of the enterprise was what stunned Sheriff Hale. It has to impact the bottom line in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in lost revenues to the company, tax revenues and on down, he said. He also noted that the U.S. Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service and Food & Drug Administration were being notified of the case, raising the possibility of significant additional charges to be added.
Naturally, the folks at Swisher were irritated about the entire matter. The customer unknowingly purchased a counterfeit Swisher Sweet Cigarillos cigar, found it to be of poor quality, and became disappointed with the Swisher Sweet brand, said Swisher president J. Thomas Ryan. That disappointment in Swisher has the potential to ruin the brands reputation.
Fortunately for Swisher, that angry customers return of what he thought was a legitimate Swisher cigar led to the break-up of only the latest in a continuing line of cigar-counterfeiting cases.
