13 million cigarettes worth more than £7m seized in crackdown on ‘tab houses’ selling illegal tobacco

Investigators have seized more than £7 million worth of cigarettes in a blitz on the illegal tobacco trade.

They recovered 13 million cigarettes and 4,300 kilos of hand-rolling tobacco in the first year of a major Trading Standards operation.

The action involved raids on shops and homes in England and Wales, with seizures at the border of smuggled tobacco and cash and the closure of illegal factories abroad.

The operation, revealed on national No Smoking Day, included HM Revenue and Customs staff, Border Force officials, police and local authorities.

More than 680,000 cigarettes with a market value of up to £200,000 were found in a house at Banbury, Oxfordshire, after they were advertised on Facebook.

Over 1,300 packets of illegally produced cigarettes and £70,000 cash were seized from a home in Newcastle, a so-called ‘tab’ house from where they were being sold directly to customers by occupants with links to organised crime.

During the year investigators also seized 109 kilos of flavoured shisha pipe tobacco products.

Wendy Martin, Director of National Trading Standards, said: “The illegal tobacco trade harms children, wider communities and businesses and props up organised crime.

“We look forward to continuing to play our part in preventing illegal tobacco from damaging people’s health, strengthening efforts to reduce the number of people who smoke and stopping many legitimate, tax paying businesses from being undersold.”

NTS said the illegal tobacco trade robbed shopkeepers of profits and cost the Treasury £2 billion a year in lost tax.

Richard Las, HMRC’s head of fraud investigations, said: “No crime is victimless. Trade in illegal tobacco undermines legitimate traders, including small independent shops that serve local communities, and takes funding away from our vital public services.”

Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive, Action on Smoking and Health said: “With price such an important prompt for smokers to give quitting a go it’s fantastic to be celebrating these achievements on national No Smoking Day.

“Cheap, illegal tobacco undermines our efforts to help smokers stop and prevent children from starting. It’s vital we keep up this work to rid our streets of the criminal sale of tobacco.”