Smuggling plot goes up in smoke

A smuggler has been jailed after he tried to sneak more than 100,000 illegal cigarettes into England.

Mohammed Adnan Ali, from Wincheap near Canterbury, was caught at Manchester Airport by Border Force officers.

The 33-year-old, along with Rashid Said Ramadan from West Drayton, had a suitcase stashed full of cigarettes.

Following an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs, a combined total of 105,239 cigarettes worth £36,904 in unpaid duty were recovered from the pair’s belongings on December 5.

They had touched down in the north-east after a flight from Erbil in Iraq, via Qatar and Heathrow Airport.

Both Ali and Ramadan admitted knowing what was in the suitcases and both pleaded guilty to the fraudulent evasion of excise duty.

Ali said they were paid £1,000 by a man they met at a café in Iraq to smuggle the cigarettes, and that another man was to collect the cigarettes at the airport.

The Canterbury man, who has a conviction for a similar smuggling offence in Denmark, has been locked up for 10 months, while Ramadan has been jailed for eight months.

A HMRC spokesman said: “It is clear that Ramadan and Ali were couriers working for an organised crime gang. They have travelled from the Middle East solely to make money from smuggling cigarettes, but instead they are behind bars.

“Tobacco smuggling steals money from the public purse. The duty evaded in this case is equivalent to funding two kidney transplants on the NHS.”