SMUGGLERS from Durham and Newcastle were among eight people caught bringing almost 250,000 contraband cigarettes into the country during the Bank Holiday weekend.

The group was caught with bootleg goods at Humberside Airport on a flight back from Tenerife overnight on Friday.

The seizure followed a bumper haul of more than four- and-half-a-million cigarettes at Immingham Docks last Thursday.

Officers searching a trailer at the docks discovered 4.6 million Classic Sovereign cigarettes shipped in from Rotterdam. The cargo was described on shipping paperwork as furniture from Germany.

Customs spokesman John Barber said: "These operations are two strands of our overall strategy to seize illegal cigarettes, whether in massive quantities in lorries and containers at the ports, or on a smaller scale, as happened at the airport.

"This is part of our robust policy of disrupting these people where it hurts them most, in their own pocket. The public must realise that these hoodlums are only in it for their own gain.

"We have said for some time that instead of getting a good deal, people buying these goods are bringing harm to the communities in which they live.

"Letting this sort of criminal activity go on will mean fewer corner shops, fewer schoolbooks and more gangsters fighting for more profits, whether they come from cigarettes, drugs or other crime."

The smugglers were trying to avoid a £500,000 tax bill which they would have had to pay, had the cigarettes been brought into the country legitimately.

The people involved have yet to be charged in connection with the seizures.

HM Customs and Excise has a confidential hotline - 0800 595000 - for members of the public with any information regarding cigarette smuggling