A Dundee man is among a gang of nine jailed for a total of 16 years and nine months after flooding shops with millions of illegal cigarettes.
Dani Adam, of Colinton Place, was jailed for two years and three months after conspiring with eight other men to distribute illegal ciggies.
The 29-year-old, formerly known as Komar Ali Mohammed, was caught following an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs in partnership with police and trading standards.
Southwark Crown Court heard Adam was in a gang led by Harem Kamishi, 33, of Tunbridge Wells.
The group avoided £667,000 in duty, hiding tobacco in cars, lock-ups and even compartments opened with car key-style fobs and selling it for £3 a time through shops in seven towns across south-east England.
Enforcement action led to the seizure of 2.9 million cigarettes and 481kg of tobacco from 2009 to 2017.
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Kim Holden, of the Crown Prose-cution Service, said the corrupt shopkeepers had been “driven by deception”.
She added: “Even when there was a wealth of evidence against them, the network still tried to deny their criminality, lies which we were able to disprove throughout the trials.”
Ben Moore, assistant director of HMRC’s fraud squad, said: “These men have undermined legitimate hard-working shop owners who serve communities and pay their taxes.”
Adam was sentenced after a jury returned guilty verdicts against him, Kamishi, Mohamad Hassan Mohamad, 36, Shamal Mohammed Najib, 44, and Dyar Jalal Hama, 33.
Aryan Maji Karim, 35, and Karwan Tahseen Omar, 28, Yassir Karim, 27, and Mohammed Rashid Mahmoud, 24, all pleaded guilty.
All nine had been charged with being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of duty on cigarettes and tobacco.
Details of the offences have only been released following the conclusion of the trials of all nine men.