LANCASTER – A Lancaster man was sentenced this week to 3 years in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $1 million in restitution for his role in a contraband cigarette trafficking ring that authorities said cheated the state out of more than $3 million in tax revenues.
Between 2002 and 2005, Daniel Araya, 43, distributed more than 1 million packs of cigarettes bearing counterfeit tax stamps. Some of the cigarettes were counterfeits that had been unlawfully smuggled into the United States from China, federal officials said.
Araya and other defendants evaded the California tax by affixing counterfeit tax stamps onto packs of cigarettes, which were then sold at smoke shops and other retail locations throughout the Southland. Araya was one of 13 people charged after a nearly three-year undercover probe, officials said.