IN PICTURES: East Lancashire gang jailed for 12 and a half years over £16.5m tobacco fraud

Ringleader Igbal Haji, together with Keith Allen, Wayne Russell Brown, and James Willmott were involved in a scam selling hundreds of thousands of cigarettes and hundreds of kilograms of tobacco.

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Preston Crown Court heard how Haji, who worked for the Post Office, sold the cigarettes and tobacco from his Blackburn home on behalf of a third party, who he refused to name.

He was caught after Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officers raided his home after carrying out surveillance for six months and found cigarettes, tobacco and thousands of pounds of cash.

Officers also discovered two notebooks detailing what he had sold, who he had sold it to and how much he had charged in his lock-up.

The court heard the first notebook covered May 2014 to September 2014, but the second spanned from November 2010 to April 2014 and contained the names of his co-defendants.

Haji, 50, of Whalley Street, Blackburn, was yesterday jailed for six years after admitting to 10 charges of carrying cigarettes and tobacco on which duty had not been paid and one charge of money laundering.

Allen, 66, of West View, Oswaldtwistle, was jailed for four years after being found guilty by a jury of carrying cigarettes and tobacco on which duty had not been paid and one count of money laundering.

Brown, 51, of Spring Vale, Darwen, and Willmott, 54, of Wellfield, Clayton-le-Moors both admitted to carrying cigarettes and tobacco on which duty had not been paid.

Brown was jailed for 13 months and Wilmott 16 months.

Frida Hussain, defending Haji, claimed her client was making £100 a week from the scam but Judge Heather Lloyd rejected those claims as ‘ludicrous’ and said a pre-sentence report had revealed the defendant owned property and cars.

Haji would not name the person who was bringing the cigarettes and tobacco in to the country for fears of reprisals for him and his family, but Judge Lloyd accepted that it was not him.

The court was told duty avoided from the first notebook totalled more than £2.7million and from the second it was nearly £13.5million.

Miss Hussain said her client had a good standing in the community but Judge Lloyd said he had abused that position by bringing criminals in to his area.

All four men were arrested in September 2014 after the original raid on Haji’s home.

That came after investigators filmed Allen making a number of visits to Haji’s home and loading black bin bags containing cigarettes and tobacco in to the back of his car, as well as £570 in cash. They also found £39,000 in cash at his home.

Prosecutors said in total he made 33 visits and the duty avoidance totalled almost £360,000.

Defending Allen, Andrew Nuttall said his client deeply regretted his actions and his health had deteriorated while awaiting sentencing.

The court heard Willmott had 17 orders and his duty avoidance totalled almost £144,000.

Defending Willmott, Ken Hind said his client had been a working man all his life but had only been able to find three days work since his arrest. He said he had worked hard to pay off his mortgage but that had been undone by his ‘regrettable’ actions.

The court heard how father-of-three Brown, a former chef at Queens Park Hospital, who also owned a chip shop, made four visits and his duty avoidance totalled £64,000.

Defending Brown, Mr Hind said his client also regretted his actions and was willing to sell assets straight away to pay back the state.

Brown has 13 houses and also a pub, which Judge Lloyd said he risks losing the licence for because of his offending.

Judge Lloyd said: “This is serious organised crime and you must all be deterred.

“You clearly thought the reward outweighed the risk.”

The gang will face a proceeds of crime hearing on January 23.

Sandra Smith, Assistant Director, Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC, said: 

“Our investigation proved that Haji was at the centre of a criminal network evading millions in tax ‎to line his own pockets.‎ 

"Disrupting criminal trade is at the heart of our strategy to clampdown 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 sale of illegal tobacco will not be tolerated."