A BARNSLEY man who played a key role in illegally importing more than seven million cigarettes before storing them in a Shafton industrial unit has been jailed for more than two years.
Russell King, of The Green, Royston, helped James Duffy, of Dundalk, Ireland, smuggle tobacco into the UK which was worth more than £2m, an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs revealed.
According to prosecutors, the set-up was masterminded by Duffy, 48, who arranged the smuggling and delivery of the illegal goods but it was 56-year-old King said to be his ‘right-hand man’ in the operation who then took over once the cigarettes had arrived in the country.
CCTV footage showed King unloading the illegal goods from a lorry, while Duffy was also present at a storage unit at an industrial estate on Sandy Bridge Lane, Shafton, which was the pair’s distribution hub.
One week after the recording King was also observed overseeing the delivery of another load this time an estimated 440,000 illegal cigarettes to a commercial property on Edmund Road in Sheffield.
He was later caught red-handed with cigarettes at the Shafton unit following a swoop by anti-fraud officers from HMRC, where investigators discovered millions of non-UK duty paid cigarettes packed in cardboard boxes.
The total worth of the haul was £2,001,292.
Eden Noblett, from HMRC’s fraud investigation unit, said: “This was a shameless attempt to put millions of illegal cigarettes on the streets and deprive the UK of money which should be used to fund our public services.
“They thought they could get away with it, but they were wrong.
“HMRC will pursue criminals like King and Duffy who think it is acceptable to deal in illegal tobacco.
“The duty evaded was enough to pay the salaries for 91 South Yorkshire trainee firefighters for a year.
“I encourage anyone with information on this type of fraud to report it to us online, or contact our fraud hotline on 0800 788 887.”
King admitted excise fraud at a hearing on August 7, 2018 and was sentenced to 28 months in prison at Leeds Crown Court last Friday.
Duffy was previously convicted of cheating public revenue and sentenced to six years in prison in May 2018.
He admitted excise fraud on 24 October, 2018 and was handed another 18-month term, which will run consecutively to his other sentence.
Proceedings are underway to recover the unpaid duty, according to a spokesman for HMRC.
