A FATHER caught illegally posting tobacco from across Europe to Lancashire with his son has been warned he faces an extra 18 months in jail unless he pays up £240,000.

Smugglers Peter and Adam Robinson, from Rossendale, were given 30-month prison terms at Manchester Crown Court after being convicted of trying to cheat the taxman out of duty.

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But after a confiscation hearing, it was established that Peter Robinson had profited from the enterprise to the tune of just under a quarter-of-a-million pounds.

And as a result a judge has ordered that he should repay his ill-gotten gains, and at least £90,000 of this must be handed over within three months. The default prison sentence in lieu of the debt is 18 months.

An earlier hearing for Adam Robinson found he had benefitted to the same amount – but he had no assets so only had to repay a nominal £1.

Customs bosses initially detained the Robinsons near Calais, France, in October 2011, with paperwork relating to consignments of cigarettes, and their fingerprints were found on postal packets dispatched from Spain, Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium.

The pair, formerly of Saunders Close, tried to evade justice for some time but were eventually tracked down to Spain and extradited back to the UK to face justice.

Speaking after a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing, Zoe Ellerbeck, HMRC’s fraud investigation service assistant director, said: “We have disrupted a criminal network that thought they were above the law.

“They were wrong and this confiscation order shows that we don’t stop once someone has been jailed, our actions continue until we have deprived them of their criminal profits.”

An investigation showed that 109 packets of cigarettes had been posted between the continent and the UK as part of the scam, between 2009 and 2011.

In total 429,600 cigarettes and 1,087 kilos of rolling tobacco were seized by customs investigators, with the duty dodged estimated at nearly £230,000.

An accomplice in Heywood, Christopher Quint, at whose home a major tobacco seizure was made during the inquiry, was given a suspended prison sentence and ordered to carry out 200 hours community service after he confessed to his role in the operation.