[SIZE="3"]Sleuths trace fake smokes to N. Korea[/SIZE]
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Saturday, January 28, 2006
In Philip Morris USA's ongoing war against counterfeiters, it was a fairly simple operation : Buy a pack of Marlboros from a corner shop on Manhattan's Upper East Side to follow up on a tip about contraband cigarettes. But it took until 2005, the year after the pack was purchased, company officials say, before they could trace the artfully counterfeited smokes to one of the world's most isolated countries, North Korea...
...U. S. authorities seized more than a billion fake smokes, many allegedly from North Korea, in California last year as part of an undercover operation targeting Asian smugglers. Millions more packs of bogus Marlboros, Mild Sevens and other cigarettes made in North Korea ....more...
