£67,000 in cash found at Northampton café used by gang smuggling six million cigarettes into UK
A Northampton café was used as the base for a £2million cigarette smuggling operation which saw around six million illicit cigarettes brought into the UK, according to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
Three members of the gang were sentenced at Northampton Crown Court on Friday, September 25, following an HMRC investigation into the operation.
HMRC said the gang stored smuggled cigarettes at a remote unit outside Brixworth, which investigators raided in February 2021.
The operation is estimated to have cost the public purse more than £2million in lost revenue.
Investigators identified Mon Cher Cafe on Wellingborough Road, run by Alin Latco, aged 51, of Francis Avenue, Northampton, as a base for the gang's activities.
According to HMRC, CCTV captured members meeting at the café and moving bags of cash around the premises. Officers subsequently discovered approximately £67,000 in cash inside a carrier bag.
A further £349,000 was recovered when officers stopped a car driven by Piotr Baranowski, aged 47, of Peterborough.
Latco admitted evading excise duty and conspiracy to transfer criminal property. He was jailed for four years and four months.
Adrian Ghergel, aged 45, of Hood Street, Northampton, admitted the same offences and received a four-year prison sentence.
Xoshawi Kalend, aged 48, of St Leonards Road, Northampton, admitted conspiracy to transfer criminal property. He received a 24-month prison sentence, suspended for 21 months, alongside 100 hours of unpaid work and a six-month electronically monitored curfew.
Another gang member, Sebastian Warzuchowski, originally from Darlowo, Poland, was jailed for three years and six months in July 2023.
Baranowski, who admitted conspiracy to transfer criminal property, is due to be sentenced on October 23.
James Ham, assistant director at HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service, said: "The illicit tobacco trade deprives our public services of funding, undercuts legitimate businesses and helps fund wider criminality.
"This gang were intent on flooding communities with cheap, illicit cigarettes and pocketing the proceeds – but HMRC was watching.
"These sentences reflect the serious consequences facing those who get involved in this kind of organised crime."
HMRC urged anyone with information about illegal tobacco sales to report it through GOV.UK.