No Escape for Cigarette Smugglers
On 12th January 2006, following their conviction at Leicester Crown Court, two cigarette smugglers were issued with confiscation orders totalling £57,500. Both men had been arrested following a surveillance operation by officers from HM Revenue & Customs.
The two men had been driving a Porsche Carrera and a Subaru Impreza when they were seen to meet up with a lorry. The officers followed the lorry and saw it and the two defendants enter a storage unit in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. As the Customs officers began to gain entry to the unit, the defendants jumped out of a first floor window and attempted to escape from the scene, but were caught and arrested. Officers found that the lorry had been partly unloaded revealing a large quantity of cigarettes.
In total, 1,909,800 cigarettes were seized with an Excise Duty liability of £333,333.62. In addition to jail terms of almost 5 years being handed out to the defendants in this case, both these men were given 5 months to pay the confiscation orders or face further jail terms of 15 months and 5 months each.