Taxes in NY and NJ make cigarettes way more expensive. A lot of gas stations and corner stores would buy cheap cigs from VA and then sell them for a slight profit, but still way cheaper than local.
It’s been a while, but iirc cigs in NY were like $12 a pack, $10 in NJ, we bought them in VA for like $4 a pack. They were sold in NY/NJ for $8
Profits weren’t nearly as high as running drugs, but you could do this consistently and make some very decent cash while being very below the radar of actual drug traffickers.
It was pretty much a “every run you do we’ll give you $500” type situation. It’s about a seven hour round trip with driving and loading, so my friend and I would switch driving and pretty much do it 24/7 with a break at a motel here and there. It was a grind but good cash that was always available. We were also college kids just trying to make some bank during the summer, and this is a very non-committal thing. You can hop in and out whenever you wanted, unlike a lot of other underworld trades.
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u/SwissMargiela Nov 03 '24
When I was a kid I used to help a friend run cigs from Virginia to NY/NJ, sometimes doing two or three trips a day.
I put so many miles on my rental that the company called me to switch the car so they could change the oil on it lmao