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A man from New Jersey is facing charges in Luzerne County Court for allegedly smuggling cigarettes without a Pennsylvania tax stamp on each pack.
Court papers for Frainel Jesus Mones, 27, of Passaic, were recently filed in the Clerk of Courts office stemming from a traffic stop for speeding on Interstate 80 near White Haven on Oct. 24.
State police at Hazleton said Mones was stopped for driving 72 mph in a 65 mph zone. During the traffic stop, the trooper spotted two boxes containing cartons of Newport cigarettes on the passenger seat.
Mones allegedly told the trooper the trunk of his vehicle was filled with cartons of cigarettes he was transporting from Virginia to New Jersey.
State police said Mones admitted he makes routine trips from Virginia to New Jersey transporting cigarettes, and was going to be paid $800 for the voyage that involved his arrest.
Mones claimed he delivered the cigarettes to a storage unit in Newark, New Jersey, and the cigarettes were going to be sold on the street in the New York City area, according to the criminal complaint.
Prior charges
It’s not the first time Mones has been arrested for transporting unstamped cigarettes.
State police at Fogelsville arrested Mones on June 18, 2013, and he was charged with possessing unstamped cigarettes after he was stopped for speeding on Interstate 78 in Lehigh County. Court records say Mones pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.
Here in Luzerne County, Mones is facing a misdemeanor charge of possession of unstamped cigarettes and a speeding citation in county court. He remains free on his own recognizance and is scheduled to be formally arraigned in county court on May 7.
State police said they recovered 331 cartons of cigarettes, which equates to 3,310 packs of cigarettes or 66,200 individual cigarettes. The cigarettes were stamped with the Virginia tax stamp and not the appropriate Pennsylvania tax stamp, the complaint says.
A Pennsylvania resident is permitted one carton of cigarettes without the Pennsylvania tax stamp, said Elizabeth Brassell, press secretary for the state Department of Revenue.
Pennsylvania levies an 8-cent tax per cigarette stick, or $16 of tax per carton. In addition to the cigarette tax, consumers pay a 6-percent sales tax when purchasing cigarette packs or cartons.
Cigarettes seized from Mones’ vehicle had a Pennsylvania tobacco tax value of $5,296.
Brassell said revenue agents work closely with state police. She said 1,400 cigarette cartons without a state stamp were seized during traffic stops in 2014, and 7,100 cigarette cartons were seized in 2013. More than 10,000 cigarette cartons were seized in 2010 with a majority of the seized tobacco from a tractor-trailer, Brassell said.
In a related issue, a North Carolina man was arrested by state police on Jan. 11 during a traffic stop on Interstate 78 in Lehigh County when more than $100,000 worth of unstamped cigarettes were found in his car, according to The Express-Times newspaper.