Man jailed after huge illegal cigarette haul found

A man has been jailed after the largest quantity of illegal and counterfeit cigarettes and tobacco to be discovered by a county's trading standards team was found.

Officers from Gloucestershire Trading Standards raided a shop leased by Idris Amin in Southgate Street, Gloucester in 2023.

Jason Poole, head of Gloucestershire Trading Standards and Consumer Protection, said the haul of one million cigarettes was "10 times more than we've ever seized before", with the goods found in Amin's flat and in lock-ups in Worcestershire.

Amin was jailed for two years and four months at Gloucester Crown Court on Wednesday. He will serve at least 11 months of before being considered for release.

Amin, 32, had leased the Gloucester city centre shop using fake IDs, which officers found he had also used to rent two storage containers in Kidderminster.

Poole said undercover officers found Amin, when asked for the cigarettes, "would pop out of the shop, go across the road to his flat and bring them back for you".

The cigarettes were illegal for several reasons, he added.

"There's no duty paid on them at all and so that money's not going to the Exchequer, which obviously we need to fund our public services in the country," Poole said.

"Some of the cigarettes are in fact counterfeit... so they wouldn't have been through European testing in regards to tar content and tobacco content, although all cigarettes are harmful.

"Thirdly, they're not labelled correctly; British cigarettes must be labelled in Pantone packaging to make them less appealing to consumers... these are in brightly coloured packets".

In the lock-ups, officers uncovered 50,000 packets of illegal cigarettes and 500 packets of illegal hand-rolling tobacco.

In interview, Amin initially tried to blame other people but eventually admitted that he had purchased the haul for £90,000, the court was told, and could have sold it for more than £260,000.

Amin's defence barrister told the court the defendant was a Kurdish asylum seeker who was trying to survive financially and had been unable to get work, and was not living a lavish lifestyle.

He was concealed in a lorry when he arrived in the UK in 2017, fleeing conflict and perseuction in Iraq, where he had spent time in a prison camp in an area controlled by ISIS, his defence barrister added.

Amin had recently married and lived with his wife in Gloucester, and Mr Recorder Mason, sentencing, said there were "many mitigating features", including Amin's lack of previous convictions and positive character.

"You have mental health problems as a consequence of the bad experiences in your life," the judge said.

"You had a difficult and deprived background due to what happened in your own country."

The judge added he gave "very careful consideration" to whether Amin's sentence could be reduced to a suspended sentence, but this was "impossible" due to the "sophistication, planning and organisation" of the offences.

"The sentence is passed, in truth, with a heavy heart, given what I've heard of your background, but you set up serious organised activity and the court has no choice but to pass this sentence," the judge said.

He added, when Amin is released, it will be decided whether he gets deported.

Poole said Gloucestershire Trading Standards was "very happy" to hear of Amin's sentencing.

"It shows the seriousness of this offence and the courts are taking it seriously," Poole said.

"And, hopefully, it will act as some sort of deterrent to other people who may be thinking of setting up a business such as this."

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