Fourteen Washington area residents have been charged with paying $8 million for 77 million contraband cigarettes sold by undercover agents and smuggling them to New York.
Two of those people were also accused of paying an undercover officer posing as a hit man to kill a man and his wife, whom they believed had stolen from them.
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The indictment was unsealed Thursday after authorities took the 14 into custody, ending a yearlong investigation.
Cigarette smuggling has increased in recent years as high taxes in New York and elsewhere have made smuggling more profitable.
The defendants lived in Virginia, Maryland, New York and the District of Columbia.
— Scott McCabe
