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Danny Sheffield, bureau director for the Tupelo office of the Mississippi State Tax Commission, center, leads an auction of state-confiscated tobacco in a warehouse just west of Tupelo, Tuesday. (C. Todd Sherman)
Pickering said in a news release that the auction in Tupelo generated $1.9 million. He said more than $1.6 million of that will go to the federal government, and Mississippi will keep $277,635.
The cigarettes were seized in two Tupelo area warehouse raids last spring.
Of the money staying in Mississippi, 80 percent goes into the general state budget, 10 percent goes to the State Tax Commission, 8 percent goes to the auditor's office and 2 percent is split among local law enforcement agencies such as the Tupelo Police Department and the Marshall County Sheriff's Department.
Read more in the NEMS Daily Journal newspaper Wednesday.