Student in £9k tobacco tax scam
‘PROLIFIC SMUGGLER’ HAD PHOTOS OF CIGARETTES AND BUNDLES OF CASH
A STUDENT smuggled cigarettes across the country, swindling thousands of pounds from the tax payer.
Benjamin Bergman, from Salford, would buy the tobacco from duty-free shops at airports, by showing a boarding pass for a foreign country outside the EU.
But instead of flying abroad, he would go directly to other cities in the UK to sell on the cigarettes, having avoided paying tax on his purchases.
In his latest stint Bergman, who studied in Israel and worked part time as a travel agent, was caught trying to smuggle 9,600 cigarettes that he bought for £1,264 at Gatwick Airport in November 2016, using a boarding card for Geneva.
But instead of flying out to Switzerland, which is outside of the EU and means he can buy duty free products, he got onto a flight bound for Glasgow to sell them on for profit.
He was stopped and arrested by Border Force officers before take-off.
HMRC began investigating and found he had carried out the same scam at Manchester Airport, Newcastle Airport, Heathrow Airport and Edinburgh Airport. Photos on his mobile showed cigarettes and tobacco he had smuggled as well as bundles of cash. Each time he would buy a flight for outside the EU, but would instead catch an internal flight before selling on the rolling tobacco or cigarettes to make money. He avoided paying £9,101.63 in tax by carrying out the scam, prosecutors said. The 25-year-old, of Westwood Avenue, pleaded guilty to eight counts of fraudulent evasion of excise duty and was sentenced to 300 hours of unpaid community work, at Croydon Magistrates’ Court. An HMRC spokesman said: “Bergman thought he was being clever, using his extensive travels as cover to make substantial purchases of tobacco and dodge paying duty. “He was a prolific smuggler but those days are now over for Bergman. “The illicit tobacco trade undermines legitimate retailers and costs the UK economy around £2.5 billion a year – money needed to fund vital public services.” Spokesman for HMRC