Four parcels containing a substantial amount of hand rolling tobacco (HRT), from Macau and mainland, were seized last week at London Stansted Airport, after smugglers attempted to hide it in rolls of fabric and tubes of baseballs, according to Hearts News agency.
The first seizure of an estimated 80 kilos of HRT was discovered in two parcels of what appeared to be rolls of fabric, which originated from Macau.
United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) officers found that the smugglers had carefully stuffed rolled up pieces of fabric into the end of each roll to disguise the fact that they were hollow and contained illicit tobacco.
The second seizure from China arrived at the Essex airport on the same day and was found in a consignment labelled as baseballs. The two parcels each contained 12 sealed tubes complete with pictures of baseballs on each side. The ammount of tobacco recovered from the inside weighed an estimated 19 kilos.
Barry McGill, assistant director for UKBA, said that "these seizures illustrate the lengths that smugglers will go to in an attempt to bring their illegal tobacco products into the UK.”
“Smugglers are criminals who are motivated by profit and they consistently demonstrate that they do not care about the harm that they cause by engaging in smuggling and organised crime whether it is associated with drugs, dangerous counterfeit cigarettes or indeed people smuggling and trafficking”, he added.
No arrests have been made so far but investigations are ongoing.