A LITHUANIAN gang was caught in the act unloading more than a million smuggled cigarettes at a warehouse, a court heard.

Investigators from HM Revenue and Customs carrying out surveillance at Pontop Business Park, Harelaw Industrial Estate, near Stanley, observed a delivery being made to a unit before a fork lift truck removed a consignment, on the afternoon of April 15, 2016.

Durham Crown Court heard the van making the delivery was registered to Dainius Pranskaitis, a 45-year-old Lithuanian man.

Simon Clegg, prosecuting, told a trial jury the same van was seen parked at budget hotel in South Tyneside, that evening, along with a Chrysler car, belonging to another Lithuanian man, Egidijus Kairys, who unlike the others lives in this country.

Mr Clegg said the pair the vehicles were registered to, and three other Lithuanian men, Linas Bernotas, 46, his 23-year-old son Haroldas and 25-year-old Kristupas Strasunskas, were all staying at the hotel.

The following morning all five travelled in the vehicles to the unit where the delivery was made the previous day.

Mr Clegg said the unit was raided at 12.30pm, and four of the men were seen unloading a large haul of cigarettes from the consignment, while a fifth was seen nearby carrying wood and a black bag.

All five were arrested and the contents of the unit were examined revealing 1.26 million delivered cigarettes.

Mr Clegg said these were contraband products, on which there was a £368,000 potential loss to the Treasury, had they been sold legally.

“If that duty was paid, properly and lawfully, it would have been spent on schools and hospitals, all the things tax would have paid for.

“They were involved unpacking that delivery and the prosecution would say they were part of a gang paid to unload them ready for sale on the black market.”

Mr Clegg said it was suspected that members of the gang were involved in up to nine other similar deliveries.

All five previously denied a charge of conspiring to deal in goods on which duty had not been paid, between December, 2013, and April, 2016.

Mr Clegg said if the other alleged visits involved a similar amount of cigarettes, Andrew Espley, for Mr Kairys, 43, of Romford, east London, the only defendant present in court, said: “His defence, in a nutshell, is that he was unaware any cigarettes were present in the warehouse, or that duty had not been paid on them, and he wasn’t part of any conspiracy.”

Counsel for the other four defendants, who were not present, said their defence was along the same lines.

Proceeding.