Man caught trying to smuggle 90,000 cigarettes through Manchester Airport.

A smuggler was snared trying to bring 90,000 cigarettes through Manchester Airport. The total duty and VAT value of the haul was worth the equivalent of funding two kidney transplants on the NHS, said HM Revenue and Customs.

Radhwan Ahmed Mawlood, 44, was stopped at the airport carrying 60,000 non UK duty-paid cigarettes in two luggage bags in November last year. He had flown from Iraq via Istanbul in Turkey.

HMRC said he later admitted that a third bag in his name, on a separate flight arriving into Manchester, contained another 30,000 cigarettes. All three luggage bags were subsequently seized and Mawlood was arrested.

The total duty and VAT of the haul was £31,560. HMRC said Mawlood claimed his family had bought the cigarettes in Iraq and he planned to give them away to friends in the UK.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/smuggler-manchester-airport-cigarettes-duty-15626633