SHAME SHAME
ARBROATH CABBIE BUSTED WITH NEARLY A MILLION ILLEGAL CIGARETTES
An Arbroath taxi driver, Andrejs Nikitins, has been caught with a massive haul of illegal cigarettes and tobacco, valued at over £400,000 in unpaid duty and VAT. Nikitins’ criminal operation was uncovered during a major investigation by HMRC known as “Operation Asleep,” which targets duty-dodging schemes. On May 12, 2022, HMRC officers monitored Nikitins as he accessed a storage unit at Keepsafe Storage in Dundee. Acting under a writ of assistance, they
found large cardboard boxes filled with various Nikitins, 50, pleaded guilty to
brands of cigarettes and tobacco. A subsequent full warrant led to the seizure of 890,640 cigarettes and 30.5kg of hand-rolling tobacco. The total amount of duty and VAT owed to the state on these items was calculated at £404,488.62.
knowingly concealing goods with the intent to defraud HMRC. His solicitor, Doug McConnell, stated that Nikitins, a taxi driver, was “trying to make a bit more money after Covid” and was only set to earn around £4,500 from the illicit enterprise. However, Sheriff Jillian Martin- Brown warned Nikitins that “a custodial sentence is a possibility” given the extreme value of the seized goods. Sentencing has been deferred until August.
CHATHAM CABBIE ORDERED TO PAY BACK £100K AFTER HELPING SMUGGLE IMMIGRANTS INTO UK
A cabbie from Chatham has been ordered to pay back £100,000 after helping smuggle immigrants into the UK. Habib Behsodim was found guilty of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration in December 2022. The 44-year-old ferried migrants who had been smuggled into the UK in the backs of lorries up to the West Midlands, where the Vietnamese organised crime group he was working with was based. Birmingham Crown Court heard Behsodi was part of a network bringing people into the country in the backs of lorries in the Europe- wide enterprise – with the human cargo referred to as “pork” and “chicken” in intercepted phone messages.
Those being transported are thought to have paid up to £17,000 for passage by entering into a debt
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agreement, work- ing off some or all of their fee by labouring in places such as cannabis farms. He was also involved in taking payments from those who had been transported in. Barrister Danielle Barden, in mitigation, said at the time he had fled torture, including “having boiling water poured over him by Taliban officers”. Judge Dean Kershaw responded to that mitigation, saying: “He came here essentially as an asylum seeker. He then involved himself in this, knowing what he went through and then didn’t care as to what others might be going through.” He told Behsodi: “Your role was like
a courier, but you were a courier of individuals who were vulnerable, and brought in for profit. “These people were treated as commodities – but they were people, human beings.” Behsodi, he said, “played a significant role”, and was “not just on the periphery”, or an individual who – as the cab driver himself had claimed – had made “an honest mistake”. Behsodi was given a 20-month jail term, suspended for two years. Following his conviction, National Crime Agency (NCA) financial investigators began work to identify assets that could be proceeds of crime. At a hearing on Friday June 27, he was ordered to pay £100,000 or face an additional 12-month jail term. He has three months to hand over the money.
AUGUST 2025 PHTM
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