Fake cigarettes estimated at $400,000 confiscated at Dulles, after multiple khat seizures in Maryland
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced Friday it had seized 2,250 cartons of counterfeit Camel cigarettes at Washington Dulles International Airport.
The fake cigarettes were discovered and confiscated on Aug. 14, a CBP news release said. The agency noted that if the cigarettes were authentic, that amount would be worth over $400,000.
CBP said the shipment, which contained 45 boxes labeled "Camel Yellow Cigarettes," arrived at Dulles on July 11 on a flight that originated in Singapore and went through Japan. Each box contained 50 cartons of Camel branded cigarettes.
Officers seized the shipment and conducted additional research "due to the unusual logo design, markings, and the odd shipment routing," CBP said. Camel brand cigarettes are manufactured by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem, N.C.
R.J. Reynolds confirmed products were fake
After reaching out to R.J. Reynolds for help in authenticating the goods, the company confirmed that the cigarettes were not genuine.
"Counterfeit cigarettes deprive the United States of tax revenue and pose a serious health concern to smokers who have no idea what, if any, dangerous chemicals they are actually inhaling with the tobacco," said CBP Area Port Director Christine Waugh.
"Intercepting counterfeit products is a Customs and Border Protection trade enforcement priority and one way in which we can help keep consumers safe," she added.
CBP said such seizures aim to protect business and consumers as part of the agency's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) enforcement program.
The agency noted that during fiscal year 2025, CBP officers and Homeland Security special agents seized nearly 78,400,000 shipments containing goods that violated IPR, which equates to nearly 25 million counterfeit goods.
"The total estimated MSRP of the seized goods, had they been genuine, was over $7.4 billion, or an average of over $20 million every day," the agency said.
The fake cigarette seizure follows multiple confiscations of the amphetamine-like substance khat at Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport (BWI) and Dulles.
