18 U.S.C. § 2342
Section 2342 · Unlawful acts
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 96 court decisions — leading case United States v. Hammoud (2004)
Most recently applied in Reba Myers v. Alejandro Mayorkas (May 2023)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly to ship, transport, receive, possess, sell, distribute, or purchase contraband cigarettes or contraband smokeless tobacco.
(b) It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly to make any false statement or representation with respect to the information required by this chapter to be kept in the records of any person who ships, sells, or distributes any quantity of cigarettes in excess of 10,000 in a single transaction.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
2006—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 109–177, §121(b)(2), inserted “or contraband smokeless tobacco” after “contraband cigarettes”.
Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 109–177, §121(a)(2), substituted “10,000” for “60,000”.
Effective Date
Subsec. (a) of this section effective Nov. 2, 1978, and subsec. (b) of this section effective on first day of first month beginning more than 120 days after Nov. 2, 1978, see section 4 of Pub. L. 95–575, set out as a note under section 2341 of this title.