Two men from West Yorkshire who were running a tobacco factory in an attic, using 9.5 tonnes of counterfeit tobacco smuggled into the UK in the soles of flip-flops, have been jailed for five years each.
Their attempt to run the illegal tobacco factory in a house in Leeds was thwarted by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the UK Border Agency who caught them red-handed receiving a delivery of counterfeit tobacco, hidden in the soles of 50,000 ‘flip flops’.
Zhi Qing Cai, 34 from Beeston local restaurateur Jian Ming Chen, 36 from Armley were caught in April last year after they arranged a delivery of flip flops to a city centre storage facility in Leeds. HMRC investigators uncovered two storage units filled with boxes of flip flops, a cover load for the loose tobacco concealed within each sole. This discovery led HMRC officers to uncover the make-shift tobacco factory in the attic of Cai’s home in Beeston.
HMRC’s Regional Director for Criminal Investigations Peter Hollier said after the case: “Cheap tobacco might seem like a bargain at the time, but this was packaged in less than clean conditions, and then passed off as the real thing, making it a much less attractive purchase. This rip-off is a clear indication that criminals are intent on maximising their profits by selling a low quality product, and I’d urge people to be wary – if you’re offered tobacco with a price that seems too good to be true, then it probably is.
”Anyone with information about illegal tobacco sales should call the Customs’ Hotline on 0800 59 5000.”
Records showed that they had rented the storage units; with CCTV recording their regular trips to the facility to collect boxes of flip flops. These were then taken to the attic room, which was filled with dozens of discarded flips flops, tubs of loose tobacco, counterfeit tobacco pouches, seals and a cellophane sealing machine.
The equipment was used to produce counterfeit hand rolling tobacco which looked like the genuine product. It would then be sold on the Yorkshire black market to unsuspecting customers who thought they were simply getting a cheap deal.
With the 9.5 tonnes of illegal tobacco, estimated to be worth around £1.2 million in unpaid duty and VAT, the gang could have made 190,000 pouches of counterfeited tobacco.
The men pleaded not guilty at hearings before Leeds Magistrates in October 2010 but were found guilty by a jury at Leeds Crown Court.
They were sentenced on February 11 by HHJ Marson who acknowledged the ‘significant loss to the public purse’. Sentencing the pair he commented “this was a well organised enterprise which involved significant and prolonged planning. I am satisfied that you both were involved in this planning.”
