Dave,
If they were importing Turkish leaf for the production of Turkish cigarettes, then they had a fighting chance. While the Trust controlled about 90% of the domestic cigarette business (i.e. cigarettes made from domestic tobacco), they never got above more than about 50% market share in the Turkish cigarette business.
Many/most of the independent Turkish cigarette manufacturers were in NYC and the surrounding area, so importing into NYC for distribution to smaller, independent manufacturers was certainly a viable enterprise. But I'm not aware of any large distribution "networks" outside of the Trust's own. The Trust had trouble breaking the smaller Turkish cigarette manufacturers' position in the market, and I'd suspect the existence of any large, independent and successful leaf distributor aiding and abetting the smaller players' success would have caught the Trust's attention and been something they'd have tried to hobble. If Shorin was lucky, he was successful but not quite successful enough to become the Trust's target.
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