ciagrettes are tobacco and paper. consider how dirt cheap those things are as raw materials when the price doesn't include sales tax or excise tax and doesn't a

ciagrettes are tobacco and paper. consider how dirt cheap those things are as raw materials when the price doesn't include sales tax or excise tax and doesn't account for the demand generated by addicts. In terms of just the cost of sourcing the materials and processing them into cigarettes you could probably afford to lose 90% of your product and still make money. As far as 25 balloons 25 teams, I think this is another r breeding strategy type of thing: inputs are dirt cheap so massive losses can be tolerated, and 25 balloons being tracked means there have to be at least 25 officers chasing each balloon in order to arrest the smuggler picking them up, but one smuggler successfully retrieving one balloon ends the day with more money than he started. I think it's designed to exploit the extremely asymmetric costs associated with tying some cigarettes to a balloon when compared to the cost of tracking a balloon across europe and arresting whoever receives it. tldr - you're absolutely right, the difference between the price of the raw materials in a cigarette and the price of the actual cigarette means they can tolerate extreme losses and still make money.