Federal raid on NY Seneca territory

Posted at: 09/27/2012 3:45 AM | Updated at: 09/27/2012 6:42 AM

Federal agents raided a warehouse on a Seneca Nation reservation in western New York yesterday.
    
A witness says agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives went through Wolf's Run Trading's building and took owner Will Parry, a tobacco wholesaler, into custody. John Kane, a radio broadcaster on the Cattaraugus reservation, also says agents initially handcuffed several employees but later released them
    
Kane says the raid was about the tribe's cigarette sales. The U.S. attorney in Kansas City has filed a civil forfeiture complaint for untaxed cigarettes, with the complaint saying that Parry isn't a licensed wholesaler authorized to bring cigarettes into New York.
    
Tribes have challenged in court New York's cigarette taxes as an interference with their sovereign rights.

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