From: HeraldScotland.com
THE Scots kingpin behind a £28 million cigarette smuggling ring has been jailed after a three-year probe by customs investigators
Kamaran Khader, 29, from Greenock, was sentenced to six years in prison for conspiracy to evade excise duty following a jury trial at Manchester Crown Court. A second Scots gang member, 36-year-old Sirwan Hassan, from Glasgow, was jailed for five years over the conspiracy.
They are among seven men, the rest were from various areas of England, who were caught smuggling millions of pounds worth of low grade, counterfeit tobacco into the UK and distributing it across Scotland and northern England.
Khader took charge of planning by sourcing the cigarettes and tobacco and arranging their delivery to the UK. Once imported, the goods were transported to industrial storage sites in Blackburn, Oldham, Essex, Ascot and Slough.
The gang came to the attention of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in 2010 after officers found 390,000 cigarettes inside a van and a further 780,000 hidden between sheets of insulation at an address in Blackburn. The gang was also linked to a seizure of 840,000 Jin Ling cigarettes in September 2011 in Oldham and a shipment of nine million Golden Eagle cigarettes which arrived in Southampton in April 2012.
