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A Florida man pleaded guilty to defrauding the state of California out of over $10 million in tobacco taxes on Monday, November 8.
The 43-year-old Akrum Alrahib is a former California resident who now lives in Miami. He admitted to conspiring to commit mail fraud, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on December 13, according to the Associated Press.
Alrahib admitted to providing untaxed tobacco products like cigars, chewing tobacco, and leaf tobacco to multiple companies and individuals in California between April 2016 and December 2017 knowing the products would be sold illegally.
According to AP, licensed tobacco distributors are required to collect and report the excise tax when they distribute products within California.
This deprived the state of the tax it would have collected and it varied during the time Alrahib was providing the products tax-free. According to AP, the tax rate more than doubled during that time from 27.30 percent to 65.08 percent of the tobacco products' wholesale cost.
“Tax evasion is not a victimless crime,” said California Department of Tax and Fee Administration Director Nick Maduros in a statement. “California communities lose critical tax dollars that pay for vital programs, and it isn’t fair for those hard-working business owners who play by the rules.”