TOBACCO EXECUTIVE SAYS HE HELPED SMUGGLERS

A tobacco company executive admitted Thursday that he helped smugglers
sell nearly $700 million worth of cigarettes on the Canadian black
market.

Leslie Thompson, a former R.J.Reynolds executive, pleaded guilty in
U.S. District Court in Syracuse, N.Y., to money laundering charges. He
could face up to seven years in prison.

Thompson, 51, of Tecumseh, Ontario, was the first tobacco-industry
executive charged in the federal government's four-year investigation
into tobacco and alcohol smuggling through the St Regis Mohawk
Reservation in northern New York. Thompson arranged to have the
company's Canadian-brand cigarettes, Export A's, exported to smugglers
in the United States.