Sunderland women smuggled 64,000 cigarettes

Four women from Sunderland have been caught trying to smuggle 64,000 cigarettes into the UK after a trip to Tenerife.

The pretend holidaymakers, who landed at Exeter Airport to try and avoid detection, were stopped and searched by Border Agency staff.

But rather than finding clothes in their suitcases, Agency staff instead found it packed with 64,000 cigarettes – over 80 times the legal limit – as well as 3.2kilos of hand-rolling tobacco.

Pete Jones, of the UK Border Agency, said: “There are strict limits on the number of cigarettes holidaymakers can bring back to the UK. If these cigarettes and tobacco had been sold on the black market, the Treasury would have lost more than £10,000 in revenue.”

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