Cigarette Trial Maneuvers
Lawyers for nine defendants in Switzerland’s largest-ever organized crime trial tried to scupper the trial Wednesday, arguing that the country lacked jurisdiction over an international cigarette smuggling ring that operated in Italy, the Balkans and the Americas. Prosecutors shot back that jurisdiction is not a problem, because the defendants allegedly used Switzerland to launder more than 1 billion Swiss francs ($881 million) to aid the smuggling ring.
Pre trial motions are underway in Bellinzona, Switzerland, where nine defendants are charged with money laundering and links to organized crime. The trial is slated to begin in May or June.
The prosecution claims that the defendants – four Swiss nationals, three Italians, one Spaniard and one Frenchman – channeled money from Neapolitan and Puglian mafia groups into the Swiss banking system in the 1990s, using money-exchange businesses in the southeastern border town of Ticino.
Shipped by Speedboat
Money was then invested in buying cigarettes from duty-free warehouses in Europe, the US and Latin America, say prosecutors. Cigarettes are then alleged to have been shipped to Montenegro – which required import licenses and transit fees rather than duties – and then speedboated to Italy, where they were sold on the black market in Naples and elsewhere. Prosecutors said that some 215 million cartons of cigarettes were sold this way in Italy and also in Spain and Britain.
No Montenegrin nationals are defendants in the trial, although Italian prosecutors in Naples issued an arrest warrant for Montenegrin President Milo Đukanović in 2005. The warrant was dropped after Montenegro declared independence the next year and Italian courts granted Đukanović diplomatic immunity. Đukanović has for years maintained that he has done nothing illegal.
Prosecutors have requested that assets seized from the defendants, including some 73 million Swiss francs ($65 million) and 40 properties, be permanently confiscated.
-- Beth Kampschror 