Eleven charged with contraband cigarette trafficking in Westchester

Eleven members of an alleged cigarette trafficking organization have been indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to distribute contraband cigarettes.

Special agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives seized $135,000 in cash and over 3,000 cartons of contraband cigarettes.

From December 2008 through May 2011, the men allegedly operated a black market for the wholesale distribution of contraband cigarettes in Yonkers and elsewhere as the Alazzam Organization. It obtained is supply from, among other places, the Poospatuck Reservation in Suffolk County. They contraband was stored in Yonkers and Mt. Vernon and distributed from there.

Mohammed Alazzam and Yacoub Kanan were charged as the leaders of the organization. All eleven men face up to five years each in federal prison if convicted.