Tobacco smuggling gang leader behind bars

    Photo Credit - HMRC

    A Leeds fraudster, who led a six-man tobacco smuggling gang in a conspiracy to put millions of illegal cigarettes on the streets, has been jailed for seven years.

    Discount furniture store owner, Geoffrey David Moon, of Thwaite Lane, Leeds, presided over a criminal gang which brought tobacco products worth more than £2 million in unpaid duty into the UK.

    HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) seized more than eight million cigarettes and 200kg of hand-rolling tobacco from an industrial unit used by Moon and his gang in 2015. All the goods were counterfeit.

    The gang was also caught with more than £1 million cash made from their crimes. Nearly half the money was found hidden within a lorry load of small metal ovens.

    HMRC said Moon used money from the fraud to fund a house by the canal, fully equipped with a 5-a-side football pitch and a canal boat.

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