In Canada the government taxes the hell out of smokes. A carton of 200 smokes ranges from 75 bucks to over 90 bucks.

The taxes are so heavy that the government has created a nice black market demand.

Here, Indian reserves are exempt from the tax. So they ship out carloads of smokes to their off reserve dealers. I buy my smokes from a dealer for 20 bucks a carton. I think he gets them for 12 and makes an 8 dollar profit.

A scam that Imperial Tobacco and Rothmans was doing was to ship the smokes to the USA duty free, then smugglers paid by the tobacco companies would smuggle them back across the border into Canada tax free. Tobacco Underground | Articles - How To Get Away With Smuggling

But since they got busted, the Indians have taken over and are supplying most of the black market.