TWO smugglers who plotted to flood the North-East with a shipment of four million illicit cigarettes have been jailed after customs officer uncovered their scam.

Brian Storey, 28, of Ryhope, was stopped by Border Force officers at the Port of Dover after arriving on a ferry from France in July 2013. Inside his HGV, they discovered cigarettes worth £919,000 in unpaid duty – hidden among pallets of toilet roll.

The find triggered an investigation by HMRC that revealed Storey’s accomplice, 38-year-old Richard Watt, of Chiswick Road, Sunderland, had obtained a credit card under a false name that he used to make Storey’s travel arrangements.

Alan Tully, assistant director of the Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC, said: “This was a calculated and audacious bid to profit from the sale of illicit tobacco.

“But conspiring to sneak four million illegal cigarettes through Dover proved to be Storey and Watt’s undoing – it was a greedy gamble that has cost them their liberty.”

During interview, Storey said he believed the HGV only contained toilet roll and dried food, and that he didn’t know the identity of the man who had made his travel arrangements. Analysis of his unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile phone revealed calls with an unknown contact regarding the tobacco shipment.

Storey and Watt pleaded guilty the fraudulent evasion of excise duty at Maidstone Crown Court.

Watt was sentenced to three years in prison while Storey was jailed for two years.

Two other men, from Morpeth and Chester-le-Street, County Durham, were cleared of involvement following a trial in July 2015.