A man from Ripley has been jailed for four years after being caught red-handed unloading more than eight million 
cigarettes from a shipping container that was supposed to be carrying tables and chairs.
Stewart Grainger was arrested by officers from HM Revenue and Customs HMRC after he was caught unloading the non-UK duty paid cigarettes, worth around £1.75 million in unpaid excise duty and VAT, after they had been delivered to an industrial unit in Ripley.
The container, which had arrived into the Port of Felixstowe from Kuala Lumpur in April 2012, was transported to the Asher Lane Business Park, where Grainger broke its seal and began unloading the cigarettes. However, when HMRC investigators and officers from Derbyshire Police raided the unit, Grainger fled but he was arrested five days later.
Grainger was caught taking delivery of millions of smuggled cigarettes, which he wrongly thought would not be detected as the shipment was marked up as furniture.
Criminal activity related to the smuggling of cigarettes costs the UK around £2 billion a year.
Grainger, who works as a lorry driver, was found guilty of the fraudulent evasion of excise duty after an earlier trial and was sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court.
