Three men imprisoned after smuggling £25m of counterfeit cigarettes into Scotland
Three Scottish crime gang members received jail sentences totaling nearly 17 years for their involvement in a UK-wide multimillion trade in black market cigarettes.
Damian Rapacki, 36, from Airdrie, Michal Zynda, 30, from Wishaw, and Marek Nadzieja, 31, from Coatbridge, all in Lanarkshire, had previously pled guilty to money laundering, tax evasion on the cigarettes, and involvement in organized crime.
The three had established a sophisticated cigarette smuggling and manufacturing network that generated millions of pounds for them personally.
A significant portion of their wealth was accumulated by their failure to pay the excise duty on the cigarettes, which were sold on the black market across Britain, including small shops and grocery stores.
At a sentencing hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday, Rapacki was jailed for six years and nine months, Zynda for five years and 11 months, and Nadzieja for four years and three months.
As part of an investigation involving Police Scotland, HMRC investigators executed 11 search warrants across Glasgow, Hamilton, Airdrie, and London in November 2020.
During those and subsequent operations, more than six million illicit cigarettes and around £950,000 in cash were seized.
An illegal tobacco manufacturing site in Hamilton was also discovered and dismantled.
According to prosecutors, the cigarettes had a value of £25 million and the organized crime group made £2.3 million in criminal profit.
The sentences were welcomed by a senior HMRC investigator yesterday.
Stewart Digney, Operational Lead at HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, said: "The illicit tobacco trade steals money from public services, undercuts legitimate businesses, and funds other crimes that impact our communities.
"We will continue to tackle this trade with our partners at the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce and we encourage anyone with information about the illegal sale of tobacco to report it."
The three men had previously pled guilty at the High Court in Glasgow on April 14 to serious organized crime offenses related to the smuggling and sale of illicit cigarettes across the UK and were sentenced to lengthy terms in Edinburgh yesterday morning.
The trial judge had deferred the sentence to obtain background reports on the men.
The black market for cigarettes in Scotland is a multimillion-pound industry driven by organized crime.
It consists of smuggled products, counterfeit brands, and illicit brands produced solely for the black market.
Approximately 27 percent of cigarettes and 68 percent of roll-your-own tobacco in the UK are purchased on the black market.
The illicit trade costs the Treasury an estimated £2.2 billion annually in lost tax revenue.
The black market cigarettes are sold at what are called "pocket money" prices, typically £5 to £7 for a pack of 20, compared to the average legal price of around £16.45.
Unregulated products often contain much higher levels of toxins like tar and nicotine than permitted by UK standards.
Politics Editor
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