More than £7 million worth of illegal cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco have been seized from across the country in the first year of a major Trading Standards operation, stated reports on Wednesday (9).
Across England and Wales, 13 million cigarettes and 4,300 kilos of hand-rolling tobacco have been seized under the operation conducted by HM Revenue and Customs staff, Border Force officials, police and local authorities, involving raids on homes and shops.
As per Sky News, among the massive haul seized were £200,000 worth of cigarettes found in a house at Banbury, Oxfordshire, after they were advertised on Facebook and over 1,300 packets of illegally produced cigarettes that were seized from a home in Newcastle, a so-called ‘tab’ house.
During the year investigators also seized 109 kilos of flavoured shisha pipe tobacco products.
Wendy Martin, Director of National Trading Standards, said: “The illegal tobacco trade harms children, wider communities and businesses and props up organised crime.
“We look forward to continuing to play our part in preventing illegal tobacco from damaging people’s health, strengthening efforts to reduce the number of people who smoke and stopping many legitimate, tax paying businesses from being undersold.”
NTS said the illegal tobacco trade robbed shopkeepers of profits and cost the Treasury £2 billion a year in lost tax.
European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) research demonstrates that 70 per cent of UK consumers buy black market tobacco products because they are cheaper than their legal counterparts.
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