TOBACCO with a retail value of more than £30,000 has been seized during a raid in County Durham.

Customs officers seized 308 kilos of Golden Virginia hand-rolling tobacco, following a visit to a house in West Cornforth.

A team of five customs officials, accompanied by officers from Durham Police, visited the house on Tuesday night, seizing the tobacco and a Mitsubishi four-wheel-drive vehicle. No arrests were made.

Rob Hastings-Trew, customs spokesman for the North-East, said: "This amount of hand-rolling tobacco will make more than half-a-million cigarettes, so it's quite a lot.

"This tobacco has a retail value of more than £30,000. The sale of smuggled tobacco in the region is having a huge impact on honest shopkeepers who are losing over 20 per cent of their turnover from cigarettes and tobacco.

"Although no arrests have yet been made, our investigations are continuing."

Mr Hastings-Trew said that 80 per cent of cigarettes and tobacco smuggled into the country arrives in commercial freight and is then broken down for distribution.

He said: "It's likely that this would have been further broken down before being offered for sale in pubs, clubs, car boot sales and the like.

"Really, it's the effect that it has on people who honestly sell tobacco to make their living that we're concerned about. While people continue to line the pockets of criminals who deal in smuggled tobacco, then the people who do it honestly will lose out."