£500,000 cigarette haul at Newcastle Airport
30.07.06
Customs officers have seized smuggled cigarettes with a street value of more than £500,000 in less than a week, according to an article in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. The officers at Newcastle Airport made a huge string of hauls.
Two Estonians were caught with 118,000 cigarettes after flying from the Baltic state via Brussels, into Newcastle and had tickets to travel on to Stansted and then to Dusseldorf. On Wednesday 150,000 cigarettes were dumped on the airport luggage carousel by passengers on a flight from Tenerife. And three days earlier 180,000 were left in abandoned suitcases.
A man from Kenton in Newcastle was arrested after he was allegedly found to have 38,000 cigarettes in his hand luggage and suitcases. He had also flown in from Tenerife. They included well-known brands like Marlboro as well as cut-price continentals like Desert Gold which can be bought for £6 for 200.
John Kinghorn, Revenue Customs' head of detection, told the newspaper: 'Most of the seizures have come from Tenerife flights. This is despite the fact we have made it very public what the allowance is. It is well-known that you can only bring 200 back but people still continue to think they can get away with it.'
The cigarettes recovered over the last seven days could have been sold on the black market in pubs and clubs on Tyneside for more than £500,000. Mr Kinghorn added: 'When someone comes in with that many cigarettes, it can only be that they want to sell them on to somebody.'
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