Illegal cigs hidden behind trap door at Hull off-licence

A CONVENIENCE store has been stripped of its alcohol licence after officials found a stash of illegal cigarettes and fake vodka hidden behind a secret door.

Fifteen-thousand smuggled cigarettes and a bag stuffed with £2,700 in cash were concealed under a specially installed trap door at the Wisla store in Beverley Road, Hull.

Customs and Trading Standards officers only discovered the switch-operated trap door by chance during an inspection of the shop in January.

Senior Trading Standards officer John Sandford said: "It was a bit like James Bond. It was quite sophisticated as the hydraulics were linked to a wall switch that operated the door."

At the time of the visit, the trap door had been partially propped open by a sports bag lying on the floor of the shop's store room.

Mr Sandford said: "If the bag hadn't been on the floor, we might never have found what we did. Fortunately, we noticed the bag appeared to be holding up the corner of a floor tile.

"When we looked closer, it became clear it wasn't a loose tile at all but a trap door that had been deliberately fitted to create a concealment space."

The haul of smuggled foreign cigarettes equated to £3,250 of excise duty evasion.

Mr Sandford said a search of the shop also uncovered 43 bottles of fake vodka.

Although they were labelled as Smirnoff vodka, the drinks were subsequently found to be counterfeits.

"Tests carried out by the public analyst confirmed the vodka was unfit and unsafe," he said. "It contained chemicals not normally found in alcohol that would be consumed from an off-licence.

"It was the opinion of the public analyst that the presence of these chemicals made these drinks unsafe."

Shop owner and licence holder Balend Ahmad Khader denied all knowledge of the secret stash hidden under the store room floor at a city council licensing sub-committee hearing.

Instead, he blamed his predecessor, who was in charge when the shop's licence was last revoked in 2011 for similar breaches.

He also insisted the vodka had been bought from a reputable cash-and-carry outlet in Doncaster.

"What happened at the shop had nothing to do with me," he said.

However, the three-man sub-committee voted unanimously to revoke the store's licence to sell alcohol.

Sub-committee chairman Councillor Sean Chaytor said: "In the view of the fact that, by his own admission, he had been in the shop every day for the previous three and a half months up to and including the day of this visit, we find his explanation to be totally unbelievable.

"The safety of the public was paramount to the review and the licensing authority will do all it can to protect them in the future."

The licence review was launched after Khader was prosecuted at Hull Magistrates' Court in May. He was sentenced to six weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, with costs of £1,200 for two offences under the Trade Marks Act and the Tobacco Products Labelling Regulations.

The prosecution followed the seizure of 10,000 cigarettes from the premises last summer.

Khader has 28 days to appeal for the decision to be overturned, after which alcohol sales will no longer be permitted at the premises.

Gary Parker, a licensing officer at Humberside Police, said: "This type of crime undermines legitimate operators and Humberside Police will work with their partners to detect and prosecute those who are involved in the importation and sale of non duty paid goods."