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Drivers jailed for smuggling
Page 7
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• Three truck drivers and a warehouse owner have been sent to prison for their part in an operation that smuggled 354 million cigarettes into the UK at an estimated loss in duty to the Exchequer of N.50m. The four were part of a gang caught by Customs officers following an Intensive undercover operation lasting 13 months.
For a year the gang, through its links with other criminals In Ireland, Gibraltar and Italy, sourced cigarettes in the EU and Third World countries and imported them into the Ell. They were then shipped to warehouses in Europe where they were hidden in trucks and freight containers alongside legitimate loads of barbeques, plywood and china. The trucks and containers were then dispatched to smuggle the cigarettes into the UK. Customs estimates that in a 12month period of illegal activity up to £3m in cash passed through the gang's hands, Extensive Customs surveillance established that a large network of transport companies, distribution sites and customers was involved in the fraud, Following a delivery to a site at Riverwharf Industrial Estate, Belvedere, Kent on 9 November 1999, Customs officers moved in to seize the cigarettes and arrested Stephen Burrell and Michael Edwards, two of the gang's principals.
When they, along with the rest of the gang, appeared at Kingston Crown Court last month, Burrell pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years and 11 months. Edwards was found guilty and sentenced to two years and six months. Both lived at The Heights, Chariton, London.
Driver Michael Conoley, of Burbage Close, London SE1, was found guilty and sentenced to two years; driver Tony Smith, of Birchwood Estate, Birchhanger, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine months.
The owner of a warehouse in Bolton, Frank Mirabitur, of Hamrick Hall Avenue, Ramsbottom, pleaded guilty and was sentencedto 18 months.
The main truck driver in the gang, Stephen O'Neon, of Lincains Close, Bishop's Stortford, appeared in court on 20 September 2001, He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment.