A gang caught stashing millions of counterfeit cigarettes worth more than £1.8m at a Lincolnshire farm have been handed prison sentences totalling 26 years.
The six men, including 44-year-old Idrees Ahmed from south Manchester, used a farm in the sleepy village of Midville to smuggle more than 6.5 millon cigarettes in what investigators called an 'organised' and 'sophisticated' operation.
The group were convicted of conspiracy to evade excise duty following a four-week trial at Nottingham Crown Court after seized Richmond cigarettes were tested and found to be counterfeit.
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Officers from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) arrested Marcin Kopec, 44, and Wojciech Rymarczuk, 46, as they unloaded three large shipping containers at the farm in June 2019.
Gang leader, Tomasz Skubis, 37, and co-conspirators, Idrees Ahmed, 44 and Ali Tofiq, 45, were arrested on the same day 19 miles away on the A58 near Baumber in a hire car that had been linked to the gang.
A sixth gang member, 32-year-old Ihtesham Khalid, was linked to the smuggling operation through surveillance, phone calls and text messages.
Sentencing on Tuesday (June 20), His Honour Judge William Harbage remarked that the monies evaded should be used to fund public services, before telling Khalid the evidence you gave was 'nonsense', 'beyond belief,' and the jury 'did not buy it for one minute”'.
Wojciech Rymarczuk, Marcin Kopec, and Tomasz Skubis did not attend the trial and were convicted and sentenced in absence to a total of 16-and-a-half years. Warrants have been issued for their arrest.
Tofiq, from Littleover, Derby, and Ahmed, from Longsight, Manchester were each jailed for three years. Khalid, from Rowley Regis, West Mids, was handed a three-and-a-half-year sentence.
Richard Paris, Assistant Director in HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, said: “This gang was large, organised, sophisticated, and determined to break the law.
“Illegal cigarettes come at a huge cost stealing money from our vital public services.
“Anyone with information about people or businesses involved in the sale, storage or smuggling of illicit tobacco can contact HMRC online. Search ‘Report Fraud HMRC’ on GOV.UK and complete our online form.”
