100,000 illegal cigarettes found in Walsall shop raid, court hears

Mohamad Hsin, aged 44, from Caldmore Green, is on trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court charged with conspiracy to sell counterfeit goods, including rolling tobacco and cigarettes. He denies the charges.

Raids at Polonia Polski Sklep, Caldmore Green, in 2013, 2014 and 2016 led to trading standards officers from Walsall Council discovering thousands of fake cigarettes that were either packaged in a carbon copy of popular brands such as Amber Leaf or JPS, completely unofficial brands or cigarettes that hadn't had their duty paid.

During a raid in May 2014, inspectors searched an adjoining property, leased to Mr Hsin, and found 65,000 JPS cigarettes amongst various other illicit tobacco products, the court heard.

The shop itself is also leased to Mr Hsin, however he argued during the most recent inspection that he is only an employee.

Prosecuting, Mark Jackson, said: "The defendant says he didn't know what was going on as he was out of the country during the first two raids and then he said that it wasn't his shop.

"We say that it is his shop and he knew what was happening. The cigarettes were definitely not legal and were definitely being sold, what we need to prove is that he was involved in the conspiracy."

During the first raid, on October 14, 2013, officers from the council's trading standards team visited the premises with West Midlands Police officers, a tobacco sniffing dog and a handler.

More than 100 pouches of rolling tobacco were found in a bag behind the counter.

A similar operation was carried out by officers on May 13, 2014, however this time the haul was much larger, with the search stretching to Mr Hsin's flat above the shop and a van that belonged to him parked outside the shop.

This time, trading standards officers found that cigarettes and tobacco had been stored in hiding places throughout the shop, including inside a microwave, in drawers, in an unused shower, and in hollowed out walls behind a bathroom cabinet and a fridge.

When asked by an inspector where Mr Hsin was, a member of staff said he was out of the country but handed over a set of keys to a van outside the shop which belonged to him.

Officers then found thousands of cigarettes inside the van before using the keys to access the flat above the shop, where they discovered more than 100,000 cigarettes, including the 65,000 JPS and 47,000 Jin Ling cigarettes, a notorious black market cigarette brand known to contain asbestos.

Speaking in his defence Mr Hsin said that he sold the shop to Hassan Ali Reza, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy and will be sentenced after Mr Hsin, but kept the lease in his name at the request of the building's owner.

The trial continues.