Just so folks understand how ridiculous New York tobacco taxes are.
New York state, this year, adds ~$4.35 per pack, which makes a pack of 20 cigarettes cost $10.45 on average (there's obviously going to be some variance based on brand, etc.).
How high is this? It's highest in the country. Now, here's where it gets stupid and one of the reasons why you have so much tobacco smuggling into New York city: just a few hundred miles away sits little ol' Virginia with its 50th lowest tobacco taxes in the country, with a tax of $0.30 per pack... making a pack cost about $4.78.
Yes, New York city tobacco taxes more than DOUBLE the price of a pack of cigarettes from Virginia. Even adding on the price of gas, a single carload of cigarettes from Virginia smuggled into NYC can be sold for a KILLER profit provided you don't get caught. You can put a 50% markup on smuggled Virginia cigarettes and you are STILL underselling the price of legal cigarettes in NYC. And bear in mind how many PACKS of cigarettes you can move in a single average car. A pack of cigarettes is the same size as a pack of cards, and weights less. You can easily move tens of thousands of dollars worth of product in an single trip in an average car... get a panel van and you can move millions...
Other options to smuggle from are Delaware (average total price per pack $5.50) and New Hampshire (average total price per pack $5.81) also make good places to smuggle from, not sure how much the saved gas vs the lower Virginia price pans out though.
You can make even more of a profit if you have connections to Indian reservation where they don't tax the sale of tobacco products AT ALL and thus avoid the Federal taxes too (which you're still paying in Virginia), which if avoided further reduce the price per pack between $1.01 to $2.11 depending on the type of cigarette.
So yeah, NYC has basically created the perfect storm for a black market to appear with their ridiculous taxes on cigarettes... and then go around and blame everyone but themselves for the problems it causes. And no, I'm not just talking about the individuals who take advantage of those cost differences, NYC also loves blaming the other states that refuse to tax tobacco as high as they do.