Shopkeeper’s high-tech £70k counterfeit cigarette operation

PACKETS DROPPED BY CHUTE FROM FLAT ABOVE

A DODGY shopkeeper operated a secret chute at his premises where illegal cigarettes could be dropped down to him from the huge numbers of packets stashed in a flat above.

The sophisticated operation used a hole in a wardrobe, a baby monitor and an ipad to communicate with someone in the flat upstairs when the coast was clear.

An illegal immigrant in the flat monitored what was happening so that cigarettes or tobacco could be dropped down the chute to the shop below, Hull Crown Court heard.

Harwin Sadoon, 31, of Spring Bank, Hull, denied two offences involving selling counterfeit or unlicensed cigarettes or tobacco in

September 2019, but was convicted by a jury after a trial.

The court heard an officer from Hull City Council’s trading standards department executed a search warrant at Beverley Road Mini Market and a flat above it in Beverley Road,with help from the police.

A vast number of cigarettes was found, totalling 118,400, as well as 246 pouches of hand-rolling tobacco all over the flat.

There was a hole in a wardrobe which had been formed into a chute leading directly into the shop below, with a walkie-talkie device, two mobile phones and an ipad.

Images from inside the Beverley Road Mini Market could be viewed on the ipad.

A 28-year-old man, an illegal immigrant, was sitting on a bed inside the room, the court heard.

The sleeves containing the cigarettes had been removed to allow individual packets to be dropped down the chute into the Mini Market below.

Council officers went downstairs to the shop and Sadoon was behind the counter, the court heard. He had been seen on the CCTV camera that was being monitored on the ipad.

The chute was checked and it could deliver cigarettes that had been dropped down it to the shop.

Sadoon claimed that it was an old chute, the court was told.

There was a walkie-talkie next to the till and it connected to the flat upstairs.

Of the 118,400 cigarettes, the total that were fake was 20,680 and the total number of foreign or incorrectly labelled cigarettes was 97,720.

The counterfeit hauls included Richmond and Camel cigarettes and pouches of Amber leaf tobacco.

The total value of the cigarettes and tobacco was just under £70,000.

Judge Sophie Mckone said: “It was an enterprise which must have taken quite a lot of planning in order to make this chute and obtain electronic equipment so that you could continue this criminal enterprise.

“You were selling them unlicensed, unregulated and goodness only knows what could have been put into those cigarettes.”

Sadoon was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence, 250 hours’ unpaid work and was ordered to pay £1,000 costs.