Leeds gang leader must repay £150,000 after being caught with eight million illegal cigarettes

A Leeds gang leader must repay £150,000 after being caught with eight million illegal cigarettes.
Photographs provided by HMRC.Photographs provided by HMRC.
Photographs provided by HMRC.

Discount furniture store owner, Geoffrey David Moon, of Thwaite Lane, Leeds, was the ringleader of a criminal gang which smuggled tobacco products worth more than £2 million in unpaid duty into the UK.

The 54-year-old, who used his business Supa Sofa Ltd on Clarence Road as a front for the fraud, used the money fund a house by a canal, fully equipped with a five-a-side football pitch and a canal boat, the HMRC said.

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He was jailed for seven years on Friday, May 11 2018 for the fraud.

Moon was ordered to pay back £148,306 within three months at Leeds Crown Court on Friday, July 5.

If he does not pay he spend a further 18 months behind bars and still owe the money.

HMRC officers seized 8,344,100 illicit cigarettes during the investigation.

They also took 200kg of hand-rolling tobacco from Moon.

All of the goods were counterfeit.

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More than £1 million cash was also seized.and was forfeited to the Crown.

Diccon Wood, Assistant Director, Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC, said: “Moon was the leader of a tobacco smuggling gang that deprived the UK of money which should be used to fund our public services. His crimes landed him behind bars and now he must pay back his ill-gotten gains.

“Our actions don’t stop at conviction and HMRC will always look to recover the proceeds of crime. We urge anyone with information about excise fraud to contact us online or call 0800 788 887.”