text_1: Illegal tobacco sales, price driven too high, has been connected to at least several cases of funding terrorism against us in multi-year investigations over the last decade and a half.
text_2: "Rep. Saccone said in a house session, ""Illegal tobacco sales, price driven too high, has been connected to at least several cases of funding terrorism against us in multi-year investigations over the last decade and a half."" Most of the trouble with this statement are its implications: American cigarette smuggling does not have strong presence in terrorism financing. Saccone himself admitted that he had heard of no such incidence in Philadelphia, where a cigarette tax bumped prices up in 2014. But, there have been cases, as he mentioned. In our research and from our correspondence with ATF, we were only able to find two groups that had financed terrorist activities through illicit tobacco sale, the Lackawanna Six and an interstate North Carolina-Michigan smuggling ring, both leading to multiple convictions."