Enfield store ordered to pay £14,000 after illicit cigarettes haul

A shop in Enfield, London and its director has been ordered to pay £14,140 in fines and costs after council officers seized thousands of illicit cigarettes.

Highbury Magistrates’ Court has in December last year found the Carpathina European Food store on Bowes Road – opposite to Arnos Grove tube station –  and director Iulian Frasinescu, aged 53 years of Whitmore Close, guilty on nine counts, of breaching the Standardised Packaging Regulations 2015, Tobacco Related Products Regulations 2016 and sections 134 and 144 of the Licensing Act 2003.

Last month, the court sentenced Frasinescu to pay a total of £7,390 and the company was ordered to pay a total of £6,750.

Enfield Council’s Trading Standards team had found 6,480 cigarette sticks, which accounted for an estimated £2,286 of unpaid excise duty and VAT, from the store during a raid as part of a crackdown on illegal tobacco sales.

The team had received intelligence and tip offs and conducted test purchases, all of which indicated that the grocer and off-licence was selling unlawfully imported cigarettes where no excise duties or VAT had been paid, in packaging that did not carry labelling in English, or health warnings about tobacco products and smoking.

“This illegal activity undermines valuable public services and fuels organised crime while putting people’s health at risk,” commented Cllr George Savva, Enfield council’s cabinet member for regulatory services.

“It is important that we continue to identify these activities and illegal products are removed from our high streets, leaving only safe, honest, hard-working businesses to operate.”

The raid was part of Operation CeCe, a joint initiative between National Trading Standards and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), in which the Enfield Council’s Trading Standards Team inspected retailers in the area along with officers from Licensing Enforcement and Police Licensing Team, dog handlers and specialist sniffer dogs.

Wendy Martin, director of National Trading Standards, said: “The trade in illegal tobacco harms local communities and affects honest businesses operating within the law.

“Operation CeCe is a National Trading Standards initiative in partnership with HMRC and is playing a significant role in disrupting this illicit trade and is helping to take illegal tobacco products off the streets.”