Smuggling gang jailed over £40m illegal cigarettes

Eleven men who smuggled 150 million cigarettes into the UK and avoided paying more than £41m in tax and duty have been sentenced.

His Majesty's Revenue and Customs officers monitored conversations between members of the gang, based in Bolton, Greater Manchester, between August 2017 and April 2018.

After seizing nearly £1m cash in planned vehicle stops, they found the gang had also been running cigarette delivery sites out of businesses in Lancashire, Merseyside and Staffordshire.

At Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on Thursday five men were jailed for up to three years and four months for smuggling cigarettes, evading £41,609,720 in tax and excise duty. Six others got suspended sentences.

All 11 members of the organised crime group pleaded guilty.

They were:

• Amit Patel, 42, of Westbourne Avenue, Bolton
• Jayun Bhudia, 35, of Herons Way, Bolton
• David Cook, 54, of Melling Mount, Liverpool
• Paul Dunbavin, 55, of Blenheim Drive, Prescot, Merseyside
• Altaf Hussein Patel, 46, of Weythorne Drive, Bolton
• Jack Mather, 57, of Highbrook Grove, Bolton
• Pshtewan Khaleed Majeed, 44, of Reservoir Road, Birmingham
• Yasir Ali, 39, of Whetley Lane, Bradford, West Yorkshire
• Carl Coxon, 65, of Gairloch, Ross-shire
• Miralam Mohammed Khan, 54, of Settle Street, Bolton
• Arkan Hussein, 41, of no fixed address

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