Those Virginia taxed cigarettes are sold in NYC for 10 bucks a pack now or 1 dollar a loosey (a... friend told me). That's 2x on packs and 4x on looseys.
That gives you a pretty healthy margin before busts could impact your profits.
Presumably you're also buying them in bulk in Virginia for cheaper than the 4 or 5 dollar store price too.
Cigarettes are probably a nickel a piece coming off the line?
They'd also be easy to send through the normal post!
It's causing USA prohibition like effects. With criminal gangs distributing in charge of distribution, protection rackets are now common place. [0] Literally hundreds of tobacco shops burnt to the ground this year. So many that TV regularly features tobacco shop arsonists caught on CCTV spilling accelerant on their clothes, and setting fire to themselves. The build up of money is letting expanding their criminal enterprises into other areas, so we are seeing a corresponding rise in car crime, importation of guns, and smuggling in other areas, and some inventive stuff like using private ATM's for money laundering.
The government is now trying a law enforcement push get control of it. But of course they were doing that before, so I presume more of the same will fail.
[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-04/illegal-tobacco-is-a-...
On the other hand, take a look at the price difference of cigarettes between Australia and Indonesia, like 20x. There must be a pretty insane volume of smuggling going on between those countries seperate by a short straight of Ocean, it would support narco submarine levels of sophistication.