RICHMOND, Va. (AP)- A former Virginia businessman who failed to report 350 cash cigarette sales of $10,000 or more has been sentenced to 10 months in prison.
Thirty-one-year-old Maher Mustafa was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court after pleading guilty to the misdemeanor in July.
According to the government, Mustafa sold millions of dollars in cigarettes to shell businesses that illegally smuggled them to high-tax states and resold them on the black market. Authorities say Mustafa failed to file a federal form reporting hundreds of transactions totaling more than $23 million. Federal law requires businesses to report transactions of more than $10,000.
Mustafa's attorneys say there is no evidence Mustafa knew his customers were doing anything improper with the cigarettes and had no obligation to investigate them.
