A MEMBER of a cigarette smuggling gang is finally behind bars after more than two years on the run.

Haroldas Bernotas, 25, was part of an organised gang who smuggled more than 12 million illegal cigarettes, worth £3.6 million in duty and VAT, into the North-East, between 2013 and 2015.

Bernotas, of Radviliškis, Lithuania, fled the UK, but was convicted after a trial at Durham Crown Court in May 2018 and sentenced to two years in jail in his absence.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) investigators tracked him to his home country, where he was arrested on June 6.

He has now appeared at Durham Crown Court more than two years after being convicted and the two-year jail sentence was confirmed.

Nicol Sheppard, assistant director of HMRC’s Offender Management and Enforcement Team, said: “Bernotas attempted to cheat justice, but even during lockdown HMRC has been working with partner authorities to relentlessly pursue fugitives of the law.

“Within seven days of his extradition being agreed with the Lithuanian authorities, our officers had extradited Bernotas back to the UK and he is now behind bars.”

Bernotas was initially arrested by HMRC officers in April 2015 after he and other gang members were caught unloading a shipment of 1.2 million cigarettes at an industrial unit in Stanley.

Egidijus Kairys, of Forest Lane, London, received a three-year prison sentence in May 2018, while Kristupas Strasunskas, of Klaipėda, Lithuania, was jailed for 18 months.

Strasunskas fled to Lithuania before he was sentenced, but he was apprehended and brought back to the UK in January 2019 to serve his time in jail.

Gang members still at large are Dainius Pranskaitis, 47, formerly of Muirkirk Road, London, Linas Bernotas, 48, of Radviliškis, Lithuania.