HOLY SMOKE! MAN IN COURT OVER POSSESSION OF 80,000 COUNTERFEIT CIGARETTES

                                                     

Boxloads of cigarettes - but all of them fake

A MAN has been sentenced after pleading guilty to three charges relating to counterfeit cigarettes and tobacco.

Saman Hamzaym (24), of Chester Place, Cleethorpes, appeared before Grimsby Magistrates’ Court on Friday 27 August after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to three charges under the 1994 Trade Marks Act.

These  related to 78,360 counterfeit Richmond cigarettes, 1,540 counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes  and 20 pouches of counterfeit Amber Leaf tobacco.

All items were seized from his vehicle outside his workplace, Ferdawes International Foods in Freeman Street, by the council’s Trading Standards officers who were supported by officers from the East Marsh Neighbourhood Policing Team.

The illicit street value of these goods at the time of the seizure was £16,140, with a legitimate value being £40,370. 

Hamzay was sentenced to a 12-month community order incorporating 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £565 costs and a victim surcharge of £90.

Magistrates gave credit to his early guilty plea, and his personal circumstances were taken into account. 

A custodial sentence had been considered due to the severity of the offences.

Since the start of North East Lincolnshire Council’s Operation Nightshade, intended to combat the supply of illicit tobacco products in the borough, the Trading Standards team have now seized 885,848 illegal cigarettes and 722.9 kilos of tobacco, which at street level has a value of almost £400,000 and a legitimate value of more than £860,000.