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Español “Internet Smoking” inquiry
Philip Morris wanted to stop Yesmoke, but it did not have the collaboration of the American authorities nor of those of Switzerland. What could they do? To solve the problem, Big Tobacco decided to turn to its faithful friends of the country of ass-kissers called Italy and give those shit-stirrers a hard time.
The “Blitz” in Italy
So, one month after the blitz at the JF Kennedy airport, at dawn on Friday, December 17th 2004 the Italian financial police - Guardia di Finanza - with the excuse of fighting cigarette smuggling, arrived at the homes of the owners and managers of Yesmoke and tried to make them understand that: “the online sale of Marlboros from Switzerland to the USA is something they must not do”.
Judge Ubaldo Pelosi had an “impelled uncontrollable impulse” to give the news to the daily paper “Repubblica” of the secret raids of the Guardia di Finanza to Yesmoke, that was still published on the edition online before the raids themselves
This marked the beginning of the investigation, named “Internet Smoking”, that was to ascertain the role of Yesmoke in a large cigarette smuggling operation in Italy, and specifically, the personal responsibility of its owners and their Italian collaborators and employees.
It is a grotesque inquiry, conducted with total disregard of laws and regulations, with telephone tapping, shadowing, raids of law enforcement agents, defamatory press releases full of meaningless idiocies, worthless testing, pre-trial secrecy violations .… All in line with the most classic judiciary ritual of the Italiots.
Shipping cigarettes to Italy with a customs declaration is legal. In the first months of the activity of its online store, Yesmoke had shipped cigarettes to Italy but the outcome was discouraging. Customs had asked not only for customs duties, but had also applied cost increases from extra taxes and supplements that made the product more expensive than at the local stores. So Yesmoke had almost immediately stopped selling its products in Italy.
On December 21st 2010, the Court of Turin, bringing to an end a case that had gone on for years, acquitted Yesmoke and all the defendants from the accusation of “contraband through Internet”, because "il fatto non sussiste”- the fact does not exist.
Chronology
- December 17, 2004: Searches of the Financial Police - Guardia di Finanza - at the Italian homes of Yesmoke's owners and all the Italian collaborators of Yesmoke;
- Summer 2005: The investigation, it seems, did not come up with anything significant, and it was passed to the Court of Genoa - Procura di Genova - for investigation for Mafia association; the investigation seems to be continuing;
- Autumn 2006: The investigation was passed to the Court of Milano;
- June 6, 2007: First hearing in Milano. The lawsuit is postponed to September 24, 2007;
- September 24, 2007: Second hearing in Milano. The Court declares his incompetence on the Yesmoke case, that was passed to the Court of Torino;
- December 22, 2008: Hearing in Turin - The decision in order to seek trial is postponed to January 21, 2009;
- January 21, 2009: Hearing in Turin - The decision in order to seek trial is postponed to February 19, 2009;
- February 19, 2009: The top-level officials of Yesmoke are remanded to trial for “contraband”.
- December 21, 2010: The Court of Turin acquitted Yesmoke and all the defendants from the accusation of “contraband through Internet”, because "il fatto non sussiste”- the fact does not exist.
“Fiscal intimidation”?
In the summer of 2005, the owner of Yesmoke Tobacco S.A. received a payment injunction for back taxes amounting to 23 million Euro; it came from the Italian Financial police - Guardia di Finanza. The request did not involve the company but the physical person of the owner.
The document, that seems to be a real case of “Fiscal intimidation”, specifies that this sum corresponds to unpaid taxes on cigarettes that were sold in Italy by Yesmoke in the years 1998 and ‘99, up to 2004. But Yesmoke.com was registered at the end of December 1999, and the company shipped its first carton of cigarettes on January 6th 2000 to France. Yesmoke was not selling in Italy! The most incredible “Evidence” is that the accounting is based on precise data; it specifies quantities in detail…
Opposition was presented to the payment request, as everything written in the document was, in fact, totally invented or fruit of incorrect information and impossible to verify. It seems to be just one more of the many intimidations. According to financial principles, it is universally acknowledged that taxes are charged to the purchaser, who pays on receipt of the goods.
This incredible tax payment request arrived right when the Yesmoke owners were planning to transfer their cigarette production from Switzerland to Turin in Italy.The intimidation produced no result.
Yesmoke and the “Mafia”
Who knows what “Mafia plots” they're looking into! These inquiries into Yesmoke's activities always have a common characteristic: they never end.
In the meantime, the party being “Investigated" gets only the answer: “Sorry… therès an inquiry under way…” , it's like when the San Paolo Bank of Turin invited Yesmoke, when the company was getting ready to build its factory in Turin, to take its accounts elsewhere. Luckily, another bank, Unicredit arrived and saved the situation warmly welcoming the excellent client Yesmoke and including it among its corporate clients.
These endless investigations may have the purpose of intimidating us. They're sending the message: “Watch out, wère always ready to invent a story about you, if you don't behave…”. Stories that will probably be incredible in their logic and brazen in their falsity, like the ones we have already read in Italian newspapers when the “Smuggling” inquiry of Imperia was being held.
But why this intimidation? Evidently the Italian authorities strongly regret that Yesmoke has sold Marlboros that were destined to the European market to American customers … it must be a really serious crime!
In the US therès a law, the “Revenue Rule”, bastion of Anglo-Saxon doctrine, that states that an American court cannot take any measures against American companies that commit the crime of smuggling in a foreign country. And it just happens that worldwide smuggling is carried on precisely by British and American companies. When the European Community tried to indict Philip Morris before an American judge for its smuggling activities in Europe (real smuggling, not online sale), the American allies refused point-blank.
A study of the organisation “Tobacco-Free Kids” states: “By supporting smuggling the companies are able to penetrate closed markets and increase their sales, as they can sell cigarettes at lower price because they are not taxed”.
In 1991 Italian Minister Rino Formica forced the removal all Marlboro cigarettes from the Italian market, declaring: “Enough is enough, Philip Morris must stop this smuggling, Italy is not a country of fools”. His measure lasted only a few months, and the Minister, too, didn't last very long.
Yesmoke's comment
It is a recurrent threat in Italy: ”I’m going to send you the Finanza!”. With this statement, in this country you want to let your worst enemy think that you know somebody in the Guardia di Finanza who might decide to investigate into his affairs. So, Big Tobacco must have set in motion their Italian “Acquaintances”.
Leo Sisti, journalist of the Italian magazine, “L'Espresso”
Newspapers spoke of a large operation involving smuggled cigarettes on the Italian territory, managed by people originally from Torino, whose names were never published. The recurrent phrase was “Persons unknown to the Italian tax system”.
The investigation was predicted, in a certain way, by the Italian magazine, “L'Espresso”. In issue number 36, dated September 9th, 2004, in an article on Yesmoke, entitled: “Come è Bello Fumare sul Web (How Nice it is to Smoke on the Web), journalist Leo Sisti wrote: “The mystery continues and the OLAF, the EU's antifraud organism, wants to see the picture clearly”. What mystery is he talking about?
L'Espresso, a very popular weekly in Italy, is known as a left-tendency magazine. But it is part of that Italian left, contaminated by ambiguous alliances, very clever at moving about in the ruthless game that is Italian politics, and it is little prone to defend the rights of the weak.
On december 17 the daily paper “La Repubblica”, that has the same publisher as L'Espresso, broke the investigation news in its online edition. Soon Swiss television stations and newspapers were calling Yesmoke people, who with the search just beginning, recorded statements for the radio and answered the journalists' questions.
The financial police, somewhat confused about the concept of cops and robbers, thought they would find cartons of duty-free cigarettes in Yesmoke’s offices and in the homes of their collaborators. In fact, with only 10 Kg of tobacco products without customs stickers (law 291 Bis, dpr 23/1/73 no. 43), purchased at the duty-free shop of an airport, and with the integral application of the law without all the extenuating circumstances usually granted, one is liable to arrest. Something that has never happened, but we believe it would have happened in Yesmoke’s case.
Moreover, Yesmoke’s owners are residents abroad. For this reason, they could have been kept in a cell for a year and a half, as there was “risk of flight”. In this way, Yesmoke would have been stopped for good, and Philip Morris would have solved its problems of “Copyright”.
Always La Repubblica, on 23 December, a week after the GdF raids, published an article full of meaningless nonsense under the title “Scatta l'offensiva al contrabbando online” (The Offensive against Online Smuggling is Launched); it says that the Swiss site Yesmoke.ch. was closed by the Italian GdF, “Following an intervention of Philip Morris”.
With the arrest, along with the “VIP Treatment” that the publications L'Espresso and La Repubblica had reserved for Yesmoke, the Italian ass-kissers wanted to make a good impression on their American friends. And the title of the article of the useful idiot, Leo Sisti, “How Nice It Is to Smoke on the Web” (Come è bello fumare sul web) would have itroduced the next secenario: the owners of Yesmoke smoking in a cell … Land of servants!
Romano Prodi & Philip Morris
There is no evidence that indicates that Italian authorities might be moving following the suggestions of Philip Morris. But certainly, the coincidences are striking, starting from the statements of Romano Prodi, president of the E.U in the summer of 2004, on the occasion of the signing with Philip Morris of the E.U cooperation agreement against smuggling: “This Agreement states that Philip Morris International will work with the European Commission and its anti-fraud office - OLAF”, said Commission President Romano Prodi. So, is it possible to hypothesize that the Italian authorities are moving following “Tip-offs” of Big Tobacco?
Today the European Union's anti-fraud organism, instead of examining the colossal fraud, worthy of the Guinness Book of Records, thanks to which Big Tobacco holds the world market monopoly with its cigarette brands and that is taking place under its nose, is focusing its attention, with Philip Morris' full collaboration, only onto Yesmoke. As l'Espresso had predicted.
More info
The report offers a concentrated version of all the madness that has animated this strange investigation, whose objective, probably, is just to intimidate us. The articles of the Italian press are very similar to this report.
- Com'è bello fumare sul Web – L'espresso, 9 September, 2004
- Yesmoke: Smuggler or Sponsor?
