Grand River Enterprises was caught up in a massive smuggling case:

Federal prosecutors quietly stayed all charges against nine alleged members of an organized cigarette-smuggling and distribution ring that operated in the Edmonton area. The RCMP bust of the smuggling ring made front-page headlines in 1996. Police seized more than 5,000 cartons of tax-free cigarettes allegedly smuggled into Alberta from an illegal tobacco plant on an Ontario Indian reserve. The charges were stayed Nov. 15, 1999, but the stay did not come to light until now.

This report is from July 2000. The nine people set free were from Alberta, and the reason they were let go was that too much time had passed since they were arrested, and the Crown was concerned that the case would be dismissed on that basis.

Of course, the fact that they wouldn't hire lawyers helped drag things out for three years.

The illegal cigarettes were manufactured by a native-owned company called Grand River Enterprises, located on the Six Nations reserve near Hamilton, Ont. The company had been denied a federal tobacco manufacturer's licence because it refused to pay excise taxes. Nine people from the reserve were eventually charged in the massive smuggling operation and, in a plea bargain, agreed to fines totalling $660,000 to avoid jail sentences. Peter Montour, the operation's ringleader, was fined $640,000. He immediately handed over a cheque for $500,000 when he was sentenced.

Peter Montour is Jerry Montour's father. Jerry and Art Montour made a significant donation to the Californa governor's race in 2003. The head of the Mohawk Warriors is also named Art Montour.

It's estimated the smuggling operation took in $25 million before it was shut down by police. The cigarettes were allegedly shipped from the Six Nations reserve to a warehouse in the Riel Industrial Park in St. Albert. Police believe the financier of the Alberta operation was bringing in about 40 cases of cigarettes each month from Ontario, making a tax-free profit of more than $20,000 a month. The cigarettes were resold to distributors for about $850 a case. Each case contained 50 cartons. And each carton was being sold for about $25, which works out to about $3 a package, roughly half the price of taxed cigarettes.

These guys were making some good money on the whole smoking thing. Maybe if someone had told anti-tobacco Premier Dalton McGuinty that the Six Nations protesters in Caledonia were smoking illegally purchased cigarettes while beating on journalists, he would have let the OPP go in and restore order.

Seriously, though, if the Montours are sitting on this sort of cash, and if they are involved in the protests, it might help explain just how the protesters are funding their protest for three months and counting.

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