Fake Cigarette And Tobacco Gang Jailed

A criminal gang who set up a factory potentially capable of making up to 625 million counterfeit cigarettes and millions of pouches of fake rolling tobacco has been jailed.

According to HM Revenue & Customs, the plot was worth over £131 million per annum in lost revenue.

HM Revenue & Customs criminal investigators closed down the cigarette factory, located in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, before it went into production and during the raid in September 2009 they discovered the gang was also planning to expand into making counterfeit alcohol.

During two co-ordinated searches at the gang’s other industrial units in Blidworth, Nottinghamshire, and a barn at Top Farm, Laxton, Newark, Nottinghamshire, investigators also seized cigarette manufacturing equipment destined for another criminal gang and a five tonne tobacco cutting machine.

Gary Lampon, Assistant Director of Criminal Investigation for HMRC, said: “This was organised crime on an industrial scale. The gang planned to launch a UK production facility, manufacturing counterfeit tobacco goods by the million. We had previously seized 1.25 million illegal cigarettes from them, so in the belief that they could make a bigger profit, they decided to make their own.

"This was all about lining their own pockets and they had no regard to the potential harm such criminal activity causes to individuals, communities and legitimate businesses.”

The gang members traded in smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes illegally manufactured in the UK.

HMRC had already seized 1.25 million cigarettes from the gang in two separate operations.

(DW)