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Home > What's New > Fake Padrons Spotted in Nicaragua
Posted: June 8, 3:30 p.m. EST
Counterfeit Padron cigars have appeared in Nicaragua, according to Jorge L. Padron, president of the Miami company that makes Padron and Padron 1964 Anniversary Series cigars. To our knowledge, this is the first instance of fake Padrons.
"We don't sell cigars here in Nicaragua. We export everything," he told Cigar Aficionado Online. Padron has factories in Nicaragua and Honduras, but like many manufacturers in the Caribbean and Central American, the cigars are made "in bond," meaning they must be exported. "Any Padrons sold here are fake."
Padron said that the cigars, to his knowledge, were not being sold in the United States, but he feared that they might end up in the States if left unchecked.
The fake Padrons come in two varieties: A Padron Toro, which measures 6 inches by 50 ring, and a Padron Aniversario, which measures approximately 8 inches by 50 ring. Padron doesn't make a cigar with either name. There is no Padron Toro, and all of the company's genuine Aniversario cigars bear specific size names such as Exclusivo, Superior or Corona.
The Padron Toros were on sale for $90 per box, and the Aniversarios were being sold for $150 per box, Padron said.
He said that the bands are very close to the originals, but that they lack the signature of his father, Jose O. Padron, which has been printed on every Padron and Padron 1964 Anniversary Series cigar band shipped in the past five months. The cigars themselves, he said, were crude copies of his genuine article--they were made with short-filler tobacco, and were not box pressed like geniune Padrons.
Jorge Padron said he has no plans to introduce any new sizes, other than the Padron Millennium cigar, and that his company doesn't sell seconds, despite recently seeing a post about Padron seconds on the Internet.
"We are trying to get to the bottom of the problem here [in Nicaragua]," said Padron, "but there is the possibility that these cigars might be brought into the United States."
-David Savona
Related Stories:
September/October 1998:
An Interview with Jose Padron
April 6, 1998:
Fake Fuentes Surface in the Dominican Republic
July/August 1997:
The Padron Family: A Nicaraguan Legacy
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