State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is suing six Web-site operators, accusing them of illegally selling cigarettes to New Yorkers and costing the state hundreds of millions in lost sales-tax revenue.

New York is one of six states that prohibit tobacco dealers from selling their products over the Internet.

“As one of my colleagues said recently, the Internet really is the crime scene of the 21st century,” Schneiderman said.

In New York state, the sales tax on a single pack of cigarettes was raised from $2.75 to a whopping $4.35 last year, one of the highest levies in the country.

Schneiderman said that because the state tax discourages smoking, the cheaper online cigarettes hurts efforts to get smokers to quit.

“If all smokers paid the average retail price for cigarettes, there would be between 51,026 and 76,539 fewer adult smokers in New York,” he said, citing state estimates.

He also accused the online sellers of making it easier for minors to buy cigarettes, thanks to their vendors’ loose age-verification practices.

“These vendors not only broke the law prohibiting the sale of tobacco online, but also endangered our children by making cigarettes easier and cheaper to purchase,” he said.

The AG’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan state Supreme Court, seeks $5,000 in fines for each violation, as well as an injunction barring the companies from future sales.

Schneiderman said his goal wasn’t to collect fines, but to stop the shipments.

(Source: NY Post)