SMUGGLING SCAM

A 35-year old man was jailed for four years on Monday at Manchester Crown Court for his part in a major counterfeit cigarette smuggling scam. Colin Haines of Isleworth, Middlesex was charged with being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of Excise duty relating to the illegal importation of 8,270,000 counterfeit cigarettes from China in June 2005.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) officers originally arrested Mr Haines in October 2005 in relation to a single illegal importation when he was working for a freight company based at Manchester Airport. During the operation HMRC officers recovered a total of 8,270,000 cigarettes equating to a duty evasion in excess of £1.7 million.

The subsequent HMRC wider investigation found that there had been other suspicious importations, leading to the seizure of over 25 million cigarettes. There was insufficient evidence to link Haines to each seizure but it was clear that the smuggling scam was larger in scale, and during the wider investigation in 2005 over 34 million cigarettes were seized.