Smethwick shopkeeper banned over illegal tobacco
A shopkeeper has been banned from working for six weeks after he was caught with £5,000 worth of tobacco and alcohol on which no duty had been paid.
Bahadoor Moharramzadeh was suspended from working at Tamasha off licence and grocers in Cape Hill, Smethwick, after 485 packets containing 20 illegal cigarettes each, as well as 21 pouches of 50g tobacco were seized with a total retail value of £4,480.
Sandwell trading standards officers, who visited the premises on August 28 after an undercover officer had been sold a packet of illegal cigarettes a month earlier, also found 39 bottles of spirits.
They were suspected of having counterfeit back labels due to the poor alignment of the tag. The batch codes for the bottles of Glen's vodka and High Commissioner whisky were checked with the distilleries, which confirmed the bottles were for export and no duty had been paid on them. Their retail value was £616.
Senior trading standards officer Chris Coxon said the cigarette packets were not displaying the appropriate health warnings, while the £2.60 price of a single packet was less than the expected £6 retail value.
He said Mr Moharramzadeh had already been convicted by magistrates over the sale of the illegal goods and had been fined £700 and ordered to pay £2,300 to cover the local authority's costs. He said: "He accepts responsibility and asks a suspension takes place for as short a period as possible."
