A CRIMINAL gang from London has been jailed for a total of more than 15 years after smuggling millions of cigarettes into the UK inside boxes of fruit and vegetables delivered to Uxbridge.

Three men evaded over £3 million in duty by using their freight company - Scanwell Freight Services Ltd in Feltham - as a cover to ship in illicit cigarettes from Dubai.

More than 14 million smuggled cigarettes were repackaged into laundry bags at an Uxbridge warehouse and delivered to addresses in the Midlands.

John Cooper, assistant director of criminal investigation at HMRC, said: “This was a major investigation into the exploits of three criminals attempting to flood the UK with illicit cigarettes.

“These men abused their position of trust as approved importers to steal millions of pounds from law-abiding taxpayers – money which should have gone into funding the UK’s vital public services.

“They thought their set-up was undetectable, but they were wrong and our investigation has led to them being brought to account.”

The group was led by Feroz Batliwala, who has an address at Ringway in Southall. He orchestrated the purchase, shipping and delivery of the contraband from his Dubai home to East Africa. The cigarettes were then concealed inside boxes of fresh fruit and veg and flown into the UK.

Batliwala, 28, pleaded guilty to conspiring to cheat Her Majesty the Queen and the public revenue at Isleworth Crown Court on Tuesday.

He was sentenced to eight years, six months in prison and banned from being a company director for 12 years.

The two other men were sentenced in January for the same offences. Krishan Solanki, 49, also known as Krishan Kumar, an Indian national of Raleigh Road, Southall, was found guilty. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and banned from being a company director for ten years.

Ashiquir Rohman Ali, 51, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, pleaded guilty and was given 20 months in prison, suspended for 24 months, and ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work.

The men were arrested in May 2012 after HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) investigators uncovered the smuggling ring, working closely with UK Border Force and the Serious Organised Crime Agency, which is now the National Crime Agency.

Picture courtesy of HMRC, with thanks