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Customs baccy blitz unfair to operators'
Page 9
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• Customs officers are crackng down hard on hauliers Nhose drivers smuggle tobacco into the UK. Almost one truck a day is being seized in Dover and more than 200 trucks have been seized at Ramsgate alone this year.
Westfield International Transport was the first haulier to lave a vehicle seized by 3ustoms under the new regime, Nhich was introduced on 16 July ast year. It has applied for a ustoms tribunal hearing over ts £23,000 fine.
The Westfield truck was seized after 500kg of tobacco vas found by Customs. In January the driver was jailed for 2 months but Westfield is refusng to pay the fine.
Transport manager Ron doore, who faces redundancy
this week due to falling profits caused by the seizure, says: We had no knowledge of the driver's actions and the action Customs are taking is unreasonable. We have lost £150,000 since July solely through the seizure of our vehicle and are now facing an uncertain future."
Moore claims that Customs was about to disband its VAT and Duty Tribunal but has been forted to keep it going because of the number of heanngs being sparked by the policy.
Anna Kablitz from Cue SpeditiOn,whO had a trailer confiscated last week after a driver brought 600kg of tobacco through Customs, says: "This is disastrous. It was a subcontractor working for us just pulling our trailers. Now this has been confiscated, despite us not knowing anything about ft."
The RHA has put pressure on Customs to change these rules. Mike Freeman, head of its international department, says the association has received a proposal involving fixed-rate fines based on a percentage of the value of the Outstanding duty on contraband.
'We still find it unacceptable," he adds. 11 haulier can put everything into place to avoid SuCh an occurrence, yet these proposals do nothing to allay the situation."