9:22am Tuesday 30th September 2008
TWO shopkeepers have been forced to kick the habit after Lancashire trading standards officers found them selling illegal cigarettes.
In separate cases,Reedley magistrates heard how raids carried out at Standish Street News and Prime Time News in Colne Road, both Burnley, led to the seizure of counterfeit packs of Superkings cigarettes.
Rizwan Ahmed, 30, who ran Prime Time News until July this year, also pleaded guilty to a similar offence involving fake Regal cigarettes, and a further charge involving 70 packs of imported cigarettes on which no excise duty had been paid.
Magistrates heard how trading standards officers had found the cigarettes hid-den in a photocopier drawer when they carried out the raid in February this year. Ahmed admitted he intended to sell the cigarettes for £3 per pack.
He was ordered to pay fines and costs of £796.
The owner of Standish Street News, Farook Loonat, 37, pleaded guilty to packs of fake Superkings found be-hind his counter on 12 December last year.
Loonat also admitted five offences of possessing for supply DVDs containing unclassified hardcore porn-ography, contrary to the Video Recordings Act 1984.
Loonat was ordered to pay fines and costs of £1,195.
In both cases the men said that they had been caught before they had been able to sell anything.
Nick McNamara, prosecu-uing, said: “These cases ref-lect a nationwide crackdown on sales of fake and duty-free products and come hot on the heels of a case of a Preston shop that was banned from selling tobacco products for six months.
“Shopkeepers who trade in illicit goods like this should expect to be caught and sentenced harshly”.
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