Despite years of native smokes canada, New York state is finally cracking down on Indian reservation cigarettes smuggled to the city. The state’s $4.90-per-pack excise tax and city sales tax combine to give smugglers a huge incentive. They can buy a pack of name brand cigarettes on the Oneida, Seneca or Onondaga reservations for $3 and sell it in a Bronx “bodega,” or mom-and-pop convenience store, for twice that much.

But wholesalers flooded the reservation smoke shops with 6.4 billion cigarettes last year, according to state tax filings. More than 43 manufacturers supplied the shops, although Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard brands accounted for two-thirds of the volume.

At Doogie’s Smoke Shop, a bright green building on the Seneca Nation’s St. Regis reservation, a pair of gas pumps sit idle among a clutter of signs promoting Newports, Marlboros and Kools. Doogie’s is a small enterprise, but it’s big enough to have drawn the attention of tobacco company reps, who visit monthly to change signs and check inventory. They also offer price cuts in exchange for prominent shelf space.

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But the tobacco companies have shown little interest in trying to stop the smuggling, since it boosts their bottom line. In fact, they often rely on smugglers as their primary distributors. That has become apparent this year, after one longtime Philip Morris direct distributor was accused of diverting Marlboros to a notorious reservation smoker who once firebombed his competitor’s car and robbed and beat another.