Man jailed over 6m cigarette haul

A man from Fermanagh has been sentenced to 30 months in prison over the seizure of nearly six million cigarettes at Dover docks in Kent.

Border Agency officers found the haul, in a load supposed to be carrying frozen apples, on a lorry disembarking a Calais ferry on 27 August 2008.

Lorry driver, Ronan Gerald Hughes, 30, from Newtownbutler, pleaded guilty to evading revenue of about £927,000.

Only eight of the 1,188 boxes unloaded from the lorry contained fruit.

The rest were carrying cigarettes.

The judge at Maidstone Crown Court said: "An offence of this kind is serious and is a theft from this country.

"This crime damaging the lives' of honest shop workers who legitimately sell cigarettes."