Illegal cigarette smugglers jailed
BARS FATHER AND SON ARE PUT BEHIND
From left: Father and son Linas and Haroldas Bernotas have been jailed for cigarette smuggling
A father and son have been jailed after helping smuggle more than 12 million cigarettes into the North East.
Linas Bernotas, 48, was part of an organised gang who smuggled millions of illegal cigarettes, worth £3.6m in duty and VAT, into the region between 2013 and 2015.
He is the latest gang member to be extradited back to the UK by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
Last month, his son Haroldas Bernotas, 25, was returned to serve a twoyear sentence after spending two years on the run.
Linas Bernotas fled the UK ahead of a trial at Durham Crown Court in May 2018. He was jailed in Denmark in December last year for his part in what is believed to be the country’s largest tobacco smuggling plot.
He was deported to Lithuania on his release, where he was arrested on July 14, under a European Arrest Warrant.
HMRC officers brought Bernotas back to the UK and he appeared at Durham Crown Court on Thursday, August 13, where he was ordered to serve his two-and-a-half-year sentence.
Nicol Sheppard, assistant director, Offender Management and Enforcement Team, HMRC, said: “We are
determined to tackle organised crime groups and stop the misery they inflict on communities.
“In the last year alone, our enforcement action against organised crime secured and protected more than £3.1 billion and 1,195 organised criminals have been prosecuted since 2011.”
Haroldas was also convicted in his absence in May 2018. He fled to Lithuania but was arrested in June and brought back to the UK, where he is now serving a two-year sentence.
The father and son were initially arrested by HMRC officers in April 2015 after they and other gang members were caught unloading a shipment of 1.2 million cigarettes at an industrial unit in Stanley, County Durham. The illegal goods were smuggled into the country concealed inside wooden cable drum discs.
Two other men have already been jailed over the smuggling plot. Egidijus Kairys, of Forest Lane, London, received a three-year prison sentence in May 2018, while Kristupas Strasunskas, of Klaipeda, Lithuania, was jailed for 18 months.
Strasunskas fled to Lithuania before he was sentenced, but he was apprehended and brought back to the UK in January 2019.
One remaining gang member, Dainius Pranskaitis, 47, formerly of Muirkirk Road, London, also failed to attend trial and is wanted by HMRC.