Three men have been accused of running a cigarette smuggling ring out of a Citgo on U.S. 1 in Spotsylvania County that sometimes sold $1 million in cigarettes a month.

A federal grand jury in Charlottesville on Wednesday indicted Vijay Nanubhai Patel, 50, Pullin P. Amin, 30, and Diveshkumar Desai, 23, all of the Fredericksburg area.

Each is charged with one count of conspiracy to traffic in contraband cigarettes and six counts of trafficking in contraband cigarettes.

The jury also charged Mars and Roshni Inc., the company that owns the Citgo station, and an unnamed man from the Bronx. Patel is the president of Mars and Roshni and runs its operations, including the C&J Citgo near Four-Mile Fork.

Amin and Desai were his employees. The company and the three Fredericksburg men are also charged with one count each of conspiracy for failing to maintain cigarette sales records.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced the indictments yesterday.

According to the announcement, starting in 2009, Patel, Amin and Desai bought cigarettes from legitimate sources in Virginia. They also bought cigarettes, both taxed and untaxed, from undercover law enforcement officers earlier this year.

The men would hold large quantities of cigarette cartons at the Citgo, where traffickers would come buy them for transport to New York, Pennsylvania and other places for resale, according to the indictment.

The men sold more than 38,000 cartons of cigarettes to New York traffickers just between June 2010 and April 2011, according to the indictment. That cost the state and city of New York more than $4.8 million in cigarette taxes and almost $432,000 in sales taxes.

Virginia's cigarette tax rate, 30 cents a pack, is the second-lowest in the nation, while New York's, at $4.35 a pack ($5.85 in New York City) is the highest, according to data from the National Council of State Legislatures and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

At the peak of the trafficking, the three Fredericksburg men are alleged to have sold $1 million worth of cigarettes a month.

If convicted, each man could get five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each count. The company could face a monetary fine.

The Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office and commonwealth's attorney helped the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the state attorney general's office with the investigation.