Three men who smuggled more than 20 million illegal cigarettes into the UK have been jailed.
Macauley Glossop, from Salford, and Robert McLean and Simon Lay, both from Birmingham, conspired to evade £6m of excise duty on the cigarettes.
Lay and Glossop were arrested in May 2018 after Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs RC investigators watched them load two million cigarettes onto a lorry at a Birmingham industrial estate.
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Lay was later stopped in the lorry by police on the M6 motorway.
Glossop was arrested at the industrial unit, near to Erdington’s Fort Dunlop Retail Park, where officers discovered nearly 19 million illegal cigarettes.
The men were jailed following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.
The court heard McLean played a leading role in the smuggling ring. He was the tenant of the unit and he received £84,980, in cash, into his bank accounts in the months leading up to his arrest.
Glossop, 25, of Parkway Grove, Little Hulton, was sentenced to three years in prison and McLean, 48, of Ruislip Close, Castle Vale was jailed for five years after both were found guilty of conspiracy to evade excise duty and money laundering.
Lay, 53, of Duncumb Close, Sutton Coldfield, was jailed for three and a half years after being found guilty of conspiracy to evade excise duty.
Richard Paris, assistant director of the HRMC's fraud investigation service, said: "These sentences should serve as a warning to others involved in the illegal cigarette and tobacco trade.
"We are determined to dismantle these networks and we will continue to seize illegal cigarettes and the proceeds of crime."
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