2 days ago
Shop boss running illegal £1m tobacco operation ordered to pay £87k and sell BMW
Shop boss running illegal £1m tobacco operation ordered to pay £87k and sell BMW
The shop was described as a 'very busy and successful' cash-based business which was being run 'primarily for the purposes of selling illicit tobacco'
Swansea Crown Court heard the Groszek store in Llanelli town centre was run 'primarily for the purposes of selling illicit tobacco'
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One of the bosses of a shop used in a £1m counterfeit tobacco operation has been ordered to pay back tens of thousands of pounds and to sell a BMW vehicle.
Shoresh Mhmood faces 10 months in prison if £86,927 isn't handed over in three months. Mhmood's co-defendant in the illegal operation, Aran Baker, has been ordered to pay £630.
Swansea Crown Court has previously heard that officers from Carmarthenshire Council carried out a series of test purchases at the Groszek shop on Cowell Street in Llanelli town centre during 2021 and 2022 during which illicit cigarettes were bought.
Searches were then carried out at the home addresses of the directors of the business, 35-year-old Mhmood and 48-year-old Baker.
The court heard 9,500 counterfeit cigarettes including brands such as Mayfair, some 170 pouches of tobacco, and a safe containing £32,699 in cash were found in Mhmood's house while 89,000 counterfeit cigarettes were found at Baker's home. Read about a criminal gang which was running a multi-million-pound operation selling counterfeit cigarettes and nitrous oxide canisters through a network of corner shops in south Wales
Lee Reynolds, prosecuting, said it was the prosecution case that the Cowell Street premises was a largely cash-based operation and was a "very busy and successful shop run primarily for the purposes of selling illicit tobacco".
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He said handwritten records discovered during the investigation suggested that on the quietest day of the week - usually Sundays - the shop was taking £615 from the sale of illicit tobacco while on busy days it was up to £2,225.
The prosecutor said the average daily figure was more than £1,200 and that across the 817-day span of the indictment that would result in a value of just under £1m.
Shoresh Salih Mhmood, of Dillwyn Street, Llanelli, was sentenced to 42 months in prison and Aran Baker, of Penciliogi, Llanelli, to 51 months in prison for engaging in fraudulent business practices. For the latest court reports sign up to our crime newsletter
The case returned to court for a proceeds of crime hearing following an investigation into the defendants' finances.
Mr Reynolds said it had been determined that each defendant had benefited from their criminal behaviour to the tune of £125,000 and that investigators had determined Baker had available assets of £630 in the form of money in a bank account while Mhmood had available assets totalling £89,927 in the form of cash, a "significant sum" in a bank account, and a BMW vehicle.
The barrister said the BMW would now be sold to realise its value, likely by way of an auction.
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The court made confiscation orders in the sums identified as available assets and set periods of custody in default of payment - seven days in the case of Baker and 10 months in the case of Mhmood.
