A lorry driver caught smuggling tobacco into the UK hidden beneath metal and plastic pipes has been jailed for 10 months.

Marcin Nowak, 51, was sentenced on Friday, December 23, after trying to bring 840kg of hand-rolling tobacco through Dover Eastern Docks.

Nowak, 51, was stopped by Border Force officers who found the tobacco packed in black bags on the floor of the lorry, hidden beneath a load of pipes.

Nowak was stopped on November 25 and HM Revenue and Customs investigated and found that the estimated excise duty evaded was £166,404.

Nowak, from the town of Krzeszowice in Poland, pleaded guilty at Maidstone Crown Court to fraudulent evasion of excise duty.

Alan Tully, assistant Director at HMRC’s fraud investigation service, said: “Nowak thought he was onto a good thing by importing illegal tobacco and that he wouldn’t be discovered.

“But the work of HMRC investigators and Border Force colleagues means he is now paying for his crime.

“We continue to work with other enforcement agencies to reduce the availability of illicit tobacco, which costs the UK around £2.4 billion a year in stolen revenue. Don’t let criminals profit by undermining legitimate retailers.”

Nowak is the latest in a line of tobacco smugglers recently caught while coming to Britain through Dover.

Just nine days before Nowak was sentenced Daniel Pacurar ,32, of Romania, was jailed for 12 months for trying to bring in 400kg of hand-rolling tobacco.

It was stashed behind bags of aggregate in his lorry in October and the duty evaded was £79,240.

Last October Andrzej Imanski, 39, from Poland, was jailed for three years for trying to smuggle 2.6 million cigarettes among boxes of dried pasta.

He was caught in April, trying to evade £645,398 in duty.

That same month Pawel Michal Maroszek , 32, also from Poland, was jailed for 21 months for trying to smuggled 2.6 million counterfeit cigarettes.

They were found in May among pallets of rotten apples and the excise duty evaded was £655,327.

In the last two years more than 3.5 billion illicit cigarettes and over 599 tonnes of hand-rolling tobacco have been seized resulting in 848 prosecutions.

Anyone with information about the smuggling, storage or illegal sale of tobacco can report it by calling our 24-hour Hotline on 0800 59 5000.