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The ringleader of a gang that used an airline’s discounted staff travel to smuggle cigarettes through UK airports has been jailed for 21 months.
A case brought by HM Revenue and Customs heard that flight attendant Dennis Connolly, 43, had organised more 130 smuggling trips, for himself and five others, using airline staff discounts.
The gang hid cigarettes and tobacco worth £180,000 in evaded duty and taxes in their luggage.
The five men and one woman from Warrington, Liverpool, St Helens and Southport were sentenced at Manchester Crown Court today after pleading guilty at an earlier court hearing.
The gang were caught out when three of them were stopped by Border Force officers at Liverpool John Lennon airport on two separate dates.
Terence Steele, 57, was stopped in November 2013 as he attempted to pass through the customs green channel with 20 kilos of hand rolling tobacco in his luggage, after a one-day trip to Faro, Portugal.
Dale O’Brien, 36, and Paul Rigby, 44, both unemployed, were stopped together at the same airport in April 2013, with 29 kilos of tobacco in their luggage, after an identical trip. An investigation by HMRC linked the smuggling activities of the gang.
Connolly, Steele and Adele Jenkinson, 41, also an airline employee, made large purchases of duty-free tobacco in Spain and Portugal for the gang to smuggle.
Meanwhile, Barry Gwynn, 39, booked 12 smuggling trips for himself and others using Jenkinson’s airline staff discount.
HMRC criminal investigation assistant director Sandra Smith said “Airline employees hold a position of trust and abusing such privileges in order to smuggle is a serious matter.
“Connolly organised subsidised travel purely for smuggling purposes. There are no excuses for smuggling, whatever your status.
“Tobacco fraud costs honest taxpayers more than £2 billion a year, undercutting honest businesses, and drawing people into wider criminality.”