RALEIGH, N.C. – A Pink Hill man was sentenced Thursday to 78 months in prison for conspiring to commit money laundering and filing a false 2014 tax return, after he pled guilty to the charges on October 7, 2020.

According to court documents and other information presented in court, Phil Caprice Howard, age 55, arranged on at least 221 different occasions for cut-rag tobacco to be transported by trucks from Wilson, North Carolina to an area on or near the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation Reservation (“Akwesasne Reservation”) as part of a conspiracy to smuggle the tobacco into Canada without paying Canadian federal excise duties and provincial taxes.