By Kevin McCauley
Gephardt Group Government Affairs represents Switzerland's SICPA Product Security, which wants to affix its digital stamp on American cigarettes to counter smuggling.
Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett has been pushing the Smuggled Tobacco Prevention Act, which requires a digital stamp as a tool to recover lost federal tax dollars. It also is a way to combat organized crime and terrorism (Hezbollah).
The Treasury Dept. has called cigarette smuggling a threat to national security.
Doggett says a global study conducted in the 1990s found that a third of the world's manufactured cigarettes was not accounted for. They simply vanished, Doggett testified to Congress earlier this year.
SICPA's American headquarters is based in New York. Turkey, Brazil and California use SICPA's digital tracing system.
Former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt is working the SICPA business with his former Congressional chief of staff Tom O'Donnell and ex-government affairs director at Hartford Financial Services Group Joel Freedman.
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