A SMUGGLER from Padiham was involved in a plot to flood the North West with millions of tax-free cigarettes hidden inside wheelie bins.

Henry Mooney, 47, was part of a Europe-wide conspiracy to evade duty on massive consignments of foriegn cigarettes, which were shipped from Germany to a warehouse in Manchester, via Holland.

Mooney, of Stockbridge Road, worked with felllow smugglers Darren Cooper and Danish Amin to set up the operation, according to Lancashire police.

The trio first arranged for the duty-free cigarettes to be loaded onto wagons in the Rhine border city of Emmerich in late October 2008.

Detetive Inspector Jo Edwards, who led the investigation, said: “Mooney was involved in setting up the yard in Emmerich and was involved later on with a second load.”

Contraband cigarettes had been hidden inside wheelie bins and legitimate transport firms were used to transport the load to the UK, so duty could be avoided on the tobacco.

Another major consignment of cigarettes is said to have arrived in the UK in December 2008.

Mooney flew out to Amsterdam later that month, at the request of Cooper and Amin, to assist with a second load.

Customs officers recovered the second consignment, totalling two million cigarettes, from the Manchester warehouse a few days later.

The first load was never found.

Mooney, and Cooper, 43, of Inner Promenade, Lytham St Annes, and Amish, 35, of Catherine Street, Wesham, each admitted conspiracy to evade tax duty.

Five other gang members, from across central Lancashire, Liverpool and North Wales, have admitted the conspiracy charge or money laundering.

Michelle Whittaker, 29, also of Catherine Street and Amin’s girlfriend, was convicted of the tax duty charge at Preston Crown Court after a trial.

Mooney’s case follows the 30-month sentence handed out to Bacup’s Craig Waterhouse last July in a separate case.

The 30-year-old attempted to import 673,000 cigarettes into the UK from China via Felixstowe port.

Husband and wife Gary and Patricia Calvert, from Nelson, evaded more than £100,000 in duty with a similar operation in February 2009.

And last year Nelson man Imran Khan, 31, was convicted of importing 72million counterfeit cigarettes.

The smuggling industry is driven by the fact that tax makes up 75 per cent of the price of a packet of cigarettes, bringing in £10billion to Government coffers.

According to the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association, smuggled cigarettes make up a quarter of those sold in the UK.

The TMA said the the 'high tax policy' had created an opportunity for criminals to meet the demand for cheap tobacco.

Smuggled cigarettes are either sold 'under the counter' by rogue shops, or in private deals through word of mouth.

Several initiatives have been launched by Lancashire’s trading standards department in recent years to track down duty-free cigarette consignments and prosecutions launched against rogue shopkeepers in Burnley and Pendle.

Solly Khonat, a Blackburn with Darwen councillor and president of the National Federation of Newsagents, said shopkeepers were sometimes approached to sell smuggled cigarettes and were also aware of illegal street sales.

Mike O’Grady, assistant director of HM Revenue and Customs’ criminal investigations department, said smuggling cheated the country out of vital revenue for hospitals and schools.

He said: "Smuggling also has a devastating impact on honest retailers."

DI Edwards said the convictions would act as a deterrent.