Illegal cigs hidden inside frozen onions

JAILED . . . Marius Majchrzak

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A FAILSWORTH man has been jailed for 12 months for smuggling more than 600,000 illegal cigarettes into the UK inside frozen onions.

Marius Majchrzak (43), of Moston Lane East, was caught and arrested by HM Revenue and Customs officers at a storage unit in Derby Street, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in July 2014.

Officers found an electronic fob for unlocking the unit in his possession and outside was a HGV with sophisticated concealment compartments disguised as frozen onions.

Seized

They discovered more than 600,000 smuggled cigarettes inside the unit, seized 20,000 cigarettes in another car and 120 illegal cigarettes in Majchrzak's Mercedes car. In addition, they found a further 723 illegal cigarettes, over10 kilos of hand-rolling tobacco, £30,450 and a cash counting machine at his home address.

CCTV footage showed Majchrzak bringing cars and vans to the unit and then boxes being loaded in to these vehicles before he drove them away.

Majhrzak pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court to five counts of conspiracy to contravene section 170(2) of the Customs and Excise Management Act on May 9, 2016.

He now faces confiscation proceedings to recover his criminal profits and the £150,444.70 of stolen tax. Another two men arrested at the unit on the same day were jailed in November, 2015.

Three other men arrested under suspicion of being involved in the smuggling plot have absconded.

Sandra Smith, assistant director, Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC, said: "You could say that when it comes to disrupting this type of criminal trade, we know our onions.

"This work is at the heart of our strategy to clamp down on the illicit tobacco market, which costs the UK around £2 billion a year.

"This is theft from the taxpayer and undermines legitimate traders.

"The storage, transport and sale of illegal tobacco products will not be tolerated - regardless of what they are hidden in."

Anyone with information about smuggled or counterfeit tobacco can contact the Customs Hotline on 0800 59 5000 to report it.