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Posted
1 hour ago, Chas.Alpha said:

Why do I always miss those??? 😂

Me too. Missed the fun apparently. 

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Taken LCDH Tijuana January 2023

I am going to track down which idiot started going down this mexico/gun/violence rabbit hole .....and shoot him off the forum permanently. His playmates can leave with him. 

Guest Nekhyludov
Posted
18 hours ago, El Presidente said:

The questions surrounding the photo are simply "why?". 

The Habanos loving public have a rigt to be confused. It is completely understandable. 

Is the gentleman in question on this forum? If not, how do we realistically expect him to respond or explain? Or even know that photos of his shop are being questioned?

Unless someone is in direct communication with him, this is all just knitting circle conjecture.

Posted
4 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I have no idea. I can't come up with any reasonable explanation why any vendor should have naked boxes of anything. The loose bands, who knows. Looks bad but maybe they were selling unbanded cigars to a US buyer or something. That has more possible explanations in my mind than 20+ totally naked boxes of Cohiba. 

Do we know if IEPT is sending these boxes out like this? Are they aware of this? It's certainly worth asking. I would think the distributor would want to know about this. 

I truly have no idea if IEPT is sending boxes out like this…if I had to guess my thought would be no.
And I too agree it would be worth an ask to the distributor. Without knowing the source of the picture, or having seen it with my own eyes I think the photo could easily be question by the proper channels. 
You would have to think they’d care to get to the bottom of it however. 

Posted
1 hour ago, Nekhyludov said:

Unless someone is in direct communication with him, this is all just knitting circle conjecture.

Plenty of members in the US are familiar with the store. They (store) have been made aware. 

Posted
1 minute ago, gormag38 said:

I truly have no idea if IEPT is sending boxes out like this…if I had to guess my thought would be no.
 

if they are .....why?

 

1 minute ago, gormag38 said:


And I too agree it would be worth an ask to the distributor.

Done 

2 minutes ago, gormag38 said:

Without knowing the source of the picture, or having seen it with my own eyes I think the photo could easily be question by the proper channels. 
 

...you can take the photo to the bank. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, El Presidente said:
4 minutes ago, gormag38 said:

And I too agree it would be worth an ask to the distributor.

Done

And that’s why you’re el jefe prez. :clap:

Posted
1 hour ago, Nekhyludov said:

Is the gentleman in question on this forum? If not, how do we realistically expect him to respond or explain? Or even know that photos of his shop are being questioned?

Unless someone is in direct communication with him, this is all just knitting circle conjecture.

I will be at this LCDH this coming Saturday. I’ll ask Moises about it. 

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Posted

Wow! I haven't used Moses in a while but know him personally from many in person/postal purchases over the years. Great guy and always considered trustworthy. I've referred many to the TJ store. Based on the facts mentioned here I won't be dealing with the three stores in the franchise anytime in the near future.  

 

Posted
17 minutes ago, smll2 said:

. Based on the facts mentioned here I won't be dealing with the three stores in the franchise anytime in the near future.  

 

let's get some answers. You guys make those decisions from those answers. 

There are enough of you who are existing clients to get the answers. That is why it is public. 

Whether it be me or Ravi or whomever (I trust), we would be upfront on discrepancies. I and the forum should expect no less here. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Nekhyludov said:

Is the gentleman in question on this forum? If not, how do we realistically expect him to respond or explain? Or even know that photos of his shop are being questioned?

Unless someone is in direct communication with him, this is all just knitting circle conjecture.

They're free to come on the forum to explain.

I'm not sure I follow that bringing it up here where the shop presumably has no current presence is somehow improper. In my mind consumers come well before vendors. And it's not really baseless conjecture--that image is pretty incriminating. To the point where a highly detailed and corroborated explanation is required. No one I've seen is outright accusing the shop of anything so there's no "defense" necessary. An image is an image. 

Would you be satisfied with an explanation of "don't worry--they're perfectly legitimate"? Because I wouldn't be surprised if that's all the store offered. 

Posted
On 3/5/2023 at 3:11 PM, Frozen North said:

I saw several of these same naked boxes in Cancun last April. I asked the clerk about them. He told me they don’t put anything on the boxes anymore. Needless to say, I turned and walked out.

This is troubling.  

Posted
19 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

Maybe I am old school. But just be "straight up". 

These were not hidden. They were in open display. Call it as it is. If it passes the "sniff test" then so be it. If it doesn't .....then "so be it'. 

We have no horse in this race. 

I feel like they would know how shady that looks. If they weren't able to explain they wouldn't have it out. Doesn't seem worth losing their licence. But who knows these days. 

Posted

Just saying. Is it a plain packaging jurisdiction? Maybe they get the boxes in plain packaging then put the cigars in fake boxes for proper sale. 😂🤷🏽‍♂️
 

There’s some cool stuff going around these days. Boxes of BHK for sale with Central American heritage for sale at lower than Cuba retail prices. Very interesting indeed 😂

Posted

I see the desk of someone who is volunteering their time and expertise to spend countless hours sorting through box-after-box of potentially fake CC's and painstakingly trying to verify the cigars' authenticity or, in the alternative, removing the unauthenticated cigars from the marketplace. I see the work of a freedom fighter who removed the Individual bands from the counterfeit cigars so that the band could be sent to the crime lab for further testing and cross-referencing with ancestry.com databases.  I see....so many badges of fraud.

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Posted

On OLH there is a member who says he bought fake Siglo VI's from Moises and I think some COROs in the past. Dont remember the details and how it was straightened out. Not sure why they would have a pile of used rings lying around next to the singles. John 

Posted
2 hours ago, LordAnubis said:

Is it a plain packaging jurisdiction?

No, only extensive health warning stickers. And why bother removing stickers if it was PP? The whole box would have to go. In fact for Canada the cigars are actually repackaged in Cuba by Havana House employees at a special warehouse. Original boxes/bands don't even travel to Canada anymore. 

As far as the loose bands here's a question: why would the bands be slid off instead of peeled off? Sliding off would be the most time consuming and potentially wrapper-damaging way to do it. The only reason would be for band preservation. But for what? 

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Posted

I’m starting to think/wonder if he is putting the bands on his in house roller -  Carlos Fernandez’s sticks.  And reboxing/selling as cohibas

He sells bundles of 25 for anywhere from $250-$350 depending on vitola. He also claims the leafs are from Cuba “I have a real life Cuban in here rolling Cuban cigars” is what he has told me every time I’ve been down. They are very good cigars, and certainly look/smell/taste the part 🤷‍♂️ 

Obviously this is nothing more than a theory.  the thing that really throws me off is that the boxes cigars and bands are out in the open like this. If I was doing something this shady, I probably wouldn’t do it for the whole world to see.  Anyway like I said, I will bring it up this weekend. This should be a make for a fun conversation. 

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Posted
40 minutes ago, bergstrom said:

I’m starting to think/wonder if he is putting the bands on his in house roller -  Carlos Fernandez’s sticks.  And reboxing/selling as cohibas

But then they end up with a bunch of genuine Cohiba without bands. What do they do with those?

A plausible explanation for the loose bands could be something like they have a buyer coming down who has requested they be removed so they can bring them over the border unbanded. Again, there are a few possible explanations for the loose bands. The naked boxes however, I can't fathom an explanation. 

As far as doing this in the open what percentage of people would 1) even notice, 2) notice and think nothing of it, 3) think something of it but would accept a basic explanation. 

Only someone very knowledgeable would recognize what naked boxes at a vendor truly means. I'm not surprised whoever shared this is a "senior member" as Rob indicates. Only an extremely knowledgeable person would recognize this for what it is. 99.9% of that shop's traffic is tourists or casual smokers.

Posted
7 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

The naked boxes however, I can't fathom an explanation. 

And not just that, bear in mind not simply all naked, as there are some with (what looks like freshly attached) unbroken Habanos chevron label and Tabacuba transit seal.

So, what we’ve got here: Naked boxes to the left, partially sealed boxes adjacent to the right. On the left, a cabinet humidor with unbanded cigars that could easily be 52 rg, loose bands and a pile of banded single cigars to the right. Sorry folks, but to me that looks like “work in progress”. If it looks like a duck...

 

And whatever explanation they may come up with - this scenario pictured, a LCDH with a bulk of naked SigVI boxes plus partially sealed ones isn’t something for which one can easily find any legally sound, substantiated reasoning. This is far from being suspicion, this is fact.

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Posted
3 hours ago, bergstrom said:

He also claims the leafs are from Cuba “I have a real life Cuban in here rolling Cuban cigars” is what he has told me every time I’ve been down.

That seems quite telling.

Posted
5 hours ago, bergstrom said:

I’m starting to think/wonder if he is putting the bands on his in house roller -  Carlos Fernandez’s sticks.  And reboxing/selling as cohibas

I think that this is hitting the nail on the head. It's the most simple explanation and we all have heard of Occam's razor. 

5 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

But then they end up with a bunch of genuine Cohiba without bands. What do they do with those?

This is the real head scratcher for me. It just doesn't make sense to have a bunch of authentic cohibas (presumably) without any bands. :thinking:

Maybe they got their hands on some counterfeit boxes with real bands (or perfect fakes) and they're taking the bands off of those to put on more quality (house rolled) cigars?

Posted

Those boxes don’t look too good. 

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