Couple stored 50,000 illegal cigarettes

A COUPLE kept almost 50,000 cigarettes on which no duty had been paid in a storage unit.

Rosemary Bailey, of Llanllienwen Close in Ynysforgan, Swansea, had initially claimed she had hired the unit at Jersey Marine to store karaoke equipment because she had downsized her home and needed storage space.

She also claimed she had sublet the unit to someone called Huw, but later admitted she allowed Alan Bernard Griffiths, of Penlan Terrace, Treboeth, to use the unit to store cigarettes, if he would pay the rental fees.

Swansea Crown Court was told that when interviewed, 67-yearold Griffiths also said the unit was sublet to ‘Huw’, and gave officers two fake phone numbers.

However, officers from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) were able to prove Griffiths visited the storage unit five times in November and December 2015.

The unit also contained 4.2 litres of Tamova Vodka, which also had no duty paid on it.

The contraband, worth £16,603.42 in evaded excise duty was discovered when HMRC officers, and tobacco-detection dogs, searched the self-storage unit on December 9, 2015.

Bailey, aged 63, and Griffiths pleaded guilty at Swansea Magistrates’ Court in September and were sentenced at Swansea Crown Court last week.

Griffiths was jailed for six months and Bailey received a community order for 12 months and a rehabilitation activity requirement for five days.

John Cooper, assistant director Fraud Investigation Service HMRC, said: “The illicit tobacco market, which costs the UK around £2.4bn a year.”