Federal prosecutors say two men pleaded guilty in federal court in Rochester to wire fraud charges involving a plot to make contraband cigarettes.
Brothers Joseph and Jonathan Thompson of the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation were working to get their hands on "cut rag tobacco," which would go into the cigarettes. Money for the purchase was wired to a tobacco broker in Florida, and delivered to warehouses the brothers controlled in Akwasasne. They manufactured nearly 28 million untaxed cigarettes before they were caught, dodging more than $1.4 million in federal taxes.
They bought more than 72,000 pounds of tobacco before they were caught in 2018 by the IRS and Homeland Security.