BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – A federal raid in Burlington aimed at illegal cigarette sales on this day in 1979.
Channel 3’s Waddi Sawabini was on the scene.
“They seized thousands of cartons of cigarettes and a bogus tax stamp – a stamp that was not legally assigned to the establishment. The firm is owned by Philip Fayette. It is a licensed cigarette wholesaler with a legal stamping machine, but apparently the firm was also stamping cigarettes with the bogus stamp without paying the tax,” reported Sawabini.
Prosecutors say Swift Sales cheated the government out of at least a million dollars in taxes.
