Brief: Dutch men jailed in UK for illicit cigarette smuggling

The UK tax authorities say a warehouse in Sandbach was used as a distribution hub by international cigarette smugglers in an £840,000 tax fraud.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officers observed a suspicious delivery at the Millbuck Way site when a heavy goods vehicle arrived towing a curtain-sided trailer and reversed up to the unit at the Springvale Industrial Estate in July 2016.

HMRC officers caught Hadayatullah Meahrabi (20) from Croydon and Willem Peele (56) from the Netherlands in the middle of unloading more than three million smuggled illegal cigarettes from the HGV.

Further illegal cigarettes were found intentionally hidden behind boxes of ice-cream cones and biscuits in the unit. In total the haul included 190,000 counterfeit Lambert & Butler cigarettes, 909,160 Richman cigarettes, 1.2m Jims Filter King cigarettes and nearly 1m Gold Classics cigarettes. The latter two brands are not sold in the UK market.

After their arrest at the rented warehouse, the two Dutch nationals were remanded into custody and - after pleading guilty to tax fraud - were jailed for a total of five years yesterday at Chester Crown Court. Peele received a three-year sentence, while Meahrabi got two years.