500,000 cigarettes are seized in smuggling plot

More than 500,000 contraband cigarettes and 150kg of tobacco smuggled into the UK from the Canary Islands were found in a shipping container in Staffordshire, a court heard.

Two men were caught red-handed unloading the haul of Domingo and Gold Classic Spanish cigarettes and tobacco which was hidden under a load of furniture.

One was today starting a 18-month prison sentence. Wolverhampton Crown Court heard yesterday how the container had been "hijacked" by smugglers and sent to an address in Cannock.

As the lorry carrying it from the docks in Felixstowe arrived, it was flagged down by Lee Field and directed to a service road off Walsall Road, where he and his friend Peter Ankrett started transferring the cigarettes and tobacco into another container that had been left at the scene earlier.

Passers-by, concerned about what was going on, went to investigate – "spooking" both men and forcing them to flee, said prosecutor Michael Taylor.

Revenue and Customs officers had been keeping watch on the smuggled load and arrested both men just a few hundred yards down the road on May 25.

The haul had evaded £262,545 VAT duty due in this country. Field, aged 34, owed £4,000 to "proper villains" who had brought him in to unload the contraband in a bid to pay off the debt and he had recruited 44-year-old Ankrett, the court was told. The latter was to be paid £250 for his help.

Stephen Cadwaladr, defending, said: "They were just hired labourers in this enterprise. Field caved into pressure after coming into contact with proper villains."

Market trader Field from Fair Oaks Drive, Walsall and Ankrett of nearby Water Reed Grove, both admitted the fraudulent evasion of duty. The former was jailed for 18 months while the other was given a 12-month community order with 150 hours unpaid work and £150 costs.