Smuggler who brought in 18 million cigarettes

A storage firm boss helped smuggle more than 18 million cigarettes into the country by hiding them in family board games.

James Spencer Hall, 35, used his Bury-based company to traffic the tobacco and try to avoid a £3.5m tax bill, Chester Crown Court heard.

He admitted a charge of being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of duty on the importation of 18,400,000 cigarettes, between December 2008 and March 2009.

Hall will be sentenced next month at Warrington Crown Court.

He was caught after customs officers intercepted the cigarettes at docks in Middlesbrough in one of the largest single seizures of its kind.

The tobacco was found in two containers at Teesport Docks on Boxing Day, 2008.

Thin layers of family board games had been placed over the cigarettes to make it appear as if the cargo was legitimate.

But customs officers found the illegal haul underneath.

The containers were set to be released into the care of Man2Man – the storage and distribution company owned by Hall.

He was arrested at his home on Friar’s Close, Rainow, near Macclesfield, in August 2009.

Hall, who lives with his wife and young child, had denied wrongdoing but pleaded guilty on the first day of his trial.

Philip Curran, prosecuting, told the court: "This defendant’s role was to ensure the safe onward supply of these cigarettes by ensuring they were safely transported into the country to those who wanted to sell it."

The court heard it was not clear where the cigarettes were being taken, because those further along the criminal chain had covered their tracks and cloned details of a legitimate company.

There was no suggestion that the defendant was selling the cigarettes himself.

But Judge Thomas Teague QC said Hall ‘had a responsible and important role in the importation of these cigarettes’.

Man2Man, which was struggling at the time of the offences, has since gone into administration, the court heard.

A customs spokesman said: "Hall had claimed that he was storing the cigarettes for a company closed over the Christmas holidays but none of his excuses proved to be true.

"He attempted to flood the UK with millions of illegal cigarettes, evading tobacco duty to line his own pockets, thereby not only depriving the UK of essential public funds, but also undercutting legitimate retailers."