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Cigarette smuggler jailed for four years

15th February 2001
Page 10
Page 10, 15th February 2001 — Cigarette smuggler jailed for four years
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• by Mike Jewel Ellesmere Port-based operator Paul Glendenning has been jailed for four years for smuggling cigarettes. He was one of six men who admitted the fraudulent evasion of 2655,791in duty.

Knutsford Crown Court heard that Customs officers raided a remote wood yard at Trevor in North Wales just after 3.2 million cigarettes had been unloaded from an artic belonging to German haulier WLS.

The two drivers of the artic, Jacob Grabinski, of Kleve, in Germany, and loannis Metallidis, of Thessalonika, in Greece, were each jailed for three years.

Derek Warburton, of St Helens, into whose van some of the cigarettes had been placed, was jailed for 12 months. The two men who had been employed to unload the vehicle, David Edwards, of Ponciau, near Wrexham, and Michael Hand, of Wrexham, were each jailed for three months.

Huw Davies, prosecuting, said the cigarettes were hidden behind pallets of soda water. The contents of one pallet-14 boxes each containing 10,000 cigarettes—had been loaded into Warburton's van. The rest were still on pallets which had been put into a shed for storage and the pallets of soda water were being reloaded on to the artic.

There were two bogus CMR notes, and when Glendenning's car was searched it was found to contain 2148,348 in sterling and Dutch guilders, with two banknote counting machines. A holdall in the cab of the tractor contained £267,475.

Analysis of the tachograph charts and other documents enabled the lorry's journey to be traced. It had been driven from Bavaria down the east coast of Italy before boarding a ferry to Patras in Greece. It was in the Athens area before returning to Patras. It was then driven to Novara, near Milan. From Italy it was driven into France and came into the UK via the Channel Tunnel.

Passing sentence, Judge Geoffrey Kilfoil said: "All of you played vital and crucial roles in this very substantial importation of cigarettes and substantial evasion of duty. Each of you know perfectly well that this kind of illegal trade loses the livelihoods of people who trade legitimately and that it also denies the public purse of the required duties and taxes.

"You were the major player in this very serious criminal offence," he told Glendenning.


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