Fresh is calling for tougher penalties against people dealing in illicit tobacco as a national consultation looks at effective ways of tackling the black market. Those who smuggle, distribute and sell illegal tobacco which often ends up in the hands of children on North East estates could be hit by a fourfold increase in fines ...more
Over 20,000 illegal cigarette sticks and over 9kg illegal hand rolling tobacco as well as over 100 illegal niche tobacco items were discovered following raids in Castleford and Pontefract. The activity was conducted by officers from the Trading Standards Illegal Tobacco Team, following up on information provided by members of the public. The raids were carried ...more
Public encouraged to report illegal sellers who often target children New anonymous website reporting form and hotline Illegal tobacco worth approx. £157,500 already seized since 2014 A campaign that aims to further reduce supply and demand for illegal tobacco, including stopping dealers who sell to children, has been relaunched across West Yorkshire. The trade in ...more
Trading standards found 81,000 Russian, Polish, and other foreign brands worth £34,000 hidden in the basement of the Darwesh Barber shop. Cut-price cigarettes have left a barber with a £1,500 fine after a huge haul of illegal tobacco was seized. Acting on an anonymous tip-off, trading standards officers found 81,000 Russian, Polish, and other foreign ...more
Sniffer dogs Scamp and Yo-Yo helped trading standards find the hidden stashes of illegal goods in two West End stores in Newcastle Sniffer dogs discovered thousands of illegal cigarettes in a series of swoops in Newcastle. The black market goods were seized by officers from trading standards after targeting shops around the city. Operation Beagle, ...more
Trading Standards officers have been carrying out raids across West Yorkshire amid reports that traders have been selling illegal tobacco and supplying to under age children. Illegal products were seized during raids in Leeds, Kirklees, Wakefield, Bradford and Calderdale, with many of the seized items found hidden in concealments such as voids in walls and ...more
A 63-year-old Bexley man is among four men from London arrested on suspicion of tobacco smuggling. ...more
A Charlton supermarket manager has been charged £4,770 after sniffer dogs found illicit tobacco inside the lining of his jacket. ...more
A raid on a Woolwich newsagent uncovered 6,600 illegal cigarettes. Police with sniffer dogs, customs and Greenwich Council trading standards officers found the illegal fags in the basement of JB Patel and Son on Woolwich New Road. Owner Jashbhia Patel was ordered to pay £5,891 at Bexley Magistrates Court on January 26 after pleading guilty ...more
Kirklees Council is backing a new campaign to tackle the trade in illegal tobacco and stop dealers who sell to children. ...more
A crackdown on the illegal tobacco trade and the sale of cigarettes to children will begin across the area today. ...more
A crackdown on the illegal tobacco trade and the sale of cigarettes to children will begin across the area today. ...more
A crackdown on the illegal tobacco trade and the sale of cigarettes to children will begin across the area today. ...more
A crackdown on the illegal tobacco trade and the sale of cigarettes to children will begin across the area today. ...more
A crackdown on the illegal tobacco trade and the sale of cigarettes to children will begin across the area today. ...more
A campaign has been launched across West Yorkshire to end the trade in illegal tobacco and catch the petty dealers who sell to children. ...more
A new campaign is launching across West Yorkshire and York (14 July) to tackle the trade in illegal tobacco and stop dealers who sell to children. ...more
A CRACKDOWN on the illegal tobacco trade and the sale of cigarettes to children will begin across West Yorkshire and York today. ...more
A new campaign is launching across West Yorkshire and York (14 July 2014) to tackle the trade in illegal tobacco and stop dealers who sell to children. ...more
A NEW campaign is launching across West Yorkshire and York (14 July) to tackle the trade in illegal tobacco and stop dealers who sell to children. ...more
Officers swooped after receiving a tip-off that non-duty paid tobacco was being sold from the premises in Heyhouses Lane. ...more
A huge stash of contraband cigarettes and Viagra-style tablets plus a Samarai swords were found hidden in a house after undercover trading standards officers carried out surveillance on a rogue dealer. ...more
Parents are being urged to help keep illegal tobacco off the streets this summer, with unscrupulous dealers likely to be looking for teenage customers over the school holidays. ...more
MORE than 600 packets of illegal tobacco were seized during raids on retail premises by police and trading standards officers. ...more
A PENSIONER appeared in court yesterday (28th February) accused of selling bootleg cigarettes and tobacco on the streets of South Tyneside. ...more
TRADERS dealing in illicit tobacco were today warned: 'We are on to you.' More than 1,000 packets of counterfeit tobacco were seized after sniffer dogs hunted them out during a series of surprise raids. ...more
A SERIES of raids have taken place in County Durham today (Friday, February 15) as part of a crackdown on illegal tobacco. ...more
TWO sniffer dogs discovered more than £4,000 worth of contraband cigarettes and packets of tobacco in children's lunchboxes. ...more
A HUGE haul of tobacco, which could have cost taxpayers £36,000 in lost revenue, has been seized at the Port of Hull. ...more
AN AIRLINE worker from Leigh has been fined for attempting to smuggle cigarettes into the UK through Manchester Airport. ...more
Ten people have been arrested in raids in the UK and Luxembourg in a suspected £50m tax fraud by an international tobacco smuggling ring. ...more
SNIFFER dogs uncovered more than 1,000 packets of illegal cigarettes at Southport shops. ...more
A £15,000 HAUL of illegal tobacco - believed to be the largest find ever made in Middlesbrough - has been seized following a house raid. ...more
WHEN Stephen Horton was stopped by customs officials after driving off the ferry from France, he declared he had "just a few packet of cigarettes with him". ...more
SOUTH Tyneside smokers are being urged to stub out illegal tobacco sales. ...more
South Tyneside trading standards officers visited a supermarket last week to encourage shoppers to stub out illegal tobacco. ...more
A contraband tobacco dealer has become the first in Scotland to receive a banning order under new Government legislation. ...more
An off licence owner has been sent to prison for 16 weeks after being convicted of a number of offences relating to the possession and supply of illegal tobacco. ...more
AN anti-smoking organisation has launched the next phase of its campaign to reduce the size of the illegal tobacco market. ...more
TYNEDALE residents are being asked to help keep illegal tobacco off the streets. ...more
A Newsagent has been fined for selling cigarettes which did not carry health warnings. ...more
Communities across Teesside are helping to keep illegal tobacco off their streets as Fresh North East launches the next phase of its successful campaign to reduce the size of the market in illegal tobacco. ...more
A MAN has been charged with evading more than £500,000 in excise duty and VAT after police seized duty free tobacco and counterfeit packaging. ...more
PEOPLE are being urged to play their part in keeping illegal tobacco off the streets. ...more
CUSTOMS officers yesterday seized 3.5 million cigarettes at Rosslare Port, adding to the haul of 38 million seized in Dublin Port on Thursday. ...more
A PENSIONER accused of trying to evade duty on large amounts of cigarettes and tobacco has been cleared of two of the three charges he faced. ...more
A Bradford shopkeeper traded in illicit cigarettes and tobacco from his city-centre store, a court heard. ...more
A haul of bootleg tobacco has been seized in raids on Tyneside stores. ...more
Two men from Staffordshire were today behind bars for their role in a counterfeit cigarette racket capable of making up to 625 million counterfeit cigarettes and five million pouches of fake hand rolling tobacco a year. ...more
A COUPLE who ran an illicit enterprise dealing in smuggled tobacco and cigarettes have been jailed. ...more
Over 16.5million illegal cigarettes - the largest single detection in the North West region this year - have been seized in Castleton. ...more
A mum is likely to lose her job and family home after being convicted of selling cigarettes to children. ...more
TWO men who sold almost £1 million worth of smuggled cigarettes and tobacco from a Doncaster mini market have been jailed for a total of 11 years. ...more
A Manchester airport worker has been jailed for her part in a gang scam to illegally buy millions of duty-free cigarettes - avoiding paying tax. ...more
A MAN who helped flood the streets of South Tyneside with black market cigarettes has been put behind bars. ...more
A new operation targeting people who sell counterfeit cigarettes to young people, is under way in Blackpool. ...more
An underworld smuggling network operating on Tyneside has been smashed after the biggest seizure of illegal cigarettes the region has ever seen. ...more
Two men and three women from Merseyside have been arrested, and cigarettes and tobacco seized, during raids by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) officers. ...more
A Stockport man who illegally smuggled a tonne of tobacco into the UK hidden in furniture, mirrors and handicrafts has been sentenced. ...more
A FORMER Whitehaven train driver masterminded a £200,000 international fraud by sending illicit drugs and tobacco home to his friends in West Cumbria after emigrating to Thailand, a court has heard. ...more
More than 37 kilos of illegal tobacco and almost 23,000 non UK duty paid cigarettes have been seized by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in an operation targeting the trade in illegal tobacco across Lancashire and Manchester. ...more
A Macclesfield man, who hijacked the identity of a company in Wales and illegally imported over 18 million cigarettes in containers claiming they were board games was jailed for three years and eight months. ...more
A market trader from Rochdale, who claimed boxes containing 40kilos of smuggled tobacco were packed with flowers, was sentenced to a suspended jail term and community work at Manchester Crown Court today for trading in illicit tobacco. His accomplice from Humberside was sentenced to 19 months jail. ...more
Police officers in Bolton discover packs of illegal cigarettes and contraband loose tobacco after raiding a busy town centre pound shop. ...more
Two men have been fined £1,130 for selling cigarettes to kids as young as 11 from their ice-cream van in Pontypool. ...more
Children as young as eight are being exploited by criminals and criminal gangs running so-called 'tab houses', health officials have warned. ...more
Two men who ran an international smuggling operation to bring in 11 million illegal cigarettes have been jailed for a total of almost 20 years. ...more
Thousands of illegal cigarettes have been taken off the streets following raids on a shop and a house in Huddersfield. ...more
Cumbria Trading Standards has vowed to step up its efforts in stamping out counterfeit tobacco and underage sales following the conviction of an ice-cream seller who sold fake fags to kids. ...more
More than 10,000 cigarettes and 1.5kg of tobacco were seized during a raid on a Birkenhead shop. ...more
More than 1 million cigarettes have been found inside concrete blocks at Immingham docks by our officers. Officers uncovered the haul on Wednesday (27 October) following checks on lorry freight arriving from the continent. ...more
Around 1.5 million cigarettes have been found hidden inside concrete blocks at Hull docks by our officers. Officers uncovered the haul on Thursday night (2 December) following checks on lorry freight arriving from Zeebrugge in Belgium. ...more
A group of illegal tobacco traders from Barnsley has been convicted after being caught with over 2-million illegal cigarettes destined for the local market. ...more
Five Merseyside men have been arrested and almost 10-million illegal cigarettes seized by officers from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). ...more
Police and trading standards have seized hundreds of counterfeit cigarettes and packets of tobacco following a raid on two homes on Gateshead's Springwell Estate. ...more
Two Manchester men who pretended to import Christmas snowmen in a plot to smuggle nine million cigarettes into the UK, have been jailed. The cigarettes had a potential tax loss of over £1.4 million. ...more
Four men have been given suspended jail sentences after being caught selling illegal cigarettes at a Bolton market. ...more
A father and son team from Sunderland has been sentenced after selling illegal tobacco and alcohol from their city centre store. ...more
Six members of a gang who used high-tech equipment to turn out 24 fake bottles of vodka a minute, plus large quantities of hand rolling tobacco, were jailed at Southwark Crown Court today for more than 56 years. ...more
A former football club chief executive has been jailed for five-and-a-half years after admitting to not paying duty on £4.5m-worth of cigarettes. ...more
A Lancashire gang who imported over two million contraband cigarettes into the country packed inside wheelie bins has been jailed for a total of almost nine-years. ...more
A gang of cigarette smugglers have been jailed after bringing almost 200,000 illegal cigarettes through Newcastle Airport. ...more
Police in Kent have seized an ice-cream van packed with cigarettes and tobacco, after being tipped off by local residents. ...more
An illegal tobacco smuggler has been forced to pay back £185,000 of his ill-gotten gains to avoid facing a prison sentence. ...more
Proceeds gained from illegal tobacco smuggling were used by the Provisional IRA to help fund terrorism, according to an article in The Irish Times. ...more
Four women from Sunderland have been caught trying to smuggle 64,000 cigarettes into the UK after a trip to Tenerife. ...more
Thousands of pounds-worth of illegal cigarettes and alcohol were confiscated during a raid in New Herrington. ...more
Trading standards officers have launched a series of raids on houses in Gateshead suspected of selling illegal tobacco. ...more
A CRACKDOWN on the illegal tobacco trade and the sale of cigarettes to children will begin across West Yorkshire and York today. ...more
Two cousins have been jailed for 18-months after selling tens of thousands of pounds-worth of counterfeit goods, including illegal tobacco, from their shop in Bradford. ...more
City of York Council is launching a new campaign across York today to tackle the trade in illegal tobacco and stop dealers who sell to children. ...more
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