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This steel box girder was discovered in a tobacco seizure on 20 January 2002. The 2 metre section shown here was part of a massive excise fraud involving 32 steel girders each packed with Superking packets of cigarettes. They were smuggled into the UK via the port of Hull, carried on a back of a lorry.
Customs were alerted by the police, who had made a visit to a warehouse near Blackburn following complaints from nearby residents hearing suspicious sounds in the early hours of the morning. The noise was the removal of the flanges, which struck the hard floor of the warehouse, to gain access to the cigarettes.
Nearly 3 million cigarettes were discovered which would have netted the gang about £500,000 on the illegal resale and the government £300,000 in lost revenue.
It is estimated the girders were used on 5 previous occasions before discovery. Potentially this is approaching £2 million in lost revenue.
Accession number CENM2004.2