A SOUTHAMPTON man has avoided jail after being caught in Hampshire with more than six million cigarettes that were smuggled into the country.

Maksim Korotkov was found at Pitt Down Farm near Winchester by police who were on duty in the area.

Southampton Crown Court was told how the 34-year-old of Botley Road, Southampton was seen with another man unloading large white boxes from a vehicle.

Prosecuting, Michael Mason said one of the men was there to buy cigarettes.

But when police stopped and arrested the pair, they found the boxes to be full of cigarettes that hadn’t had the duty paid on them.

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A further search was conducted with police discovering keys and when police entered one of the barns, they discovered 20 pallets of boxes containing millions of cigarettes.

In total, 6,139,019 cigarettes were seized including Business Royals and Superkings with a value to the supplier of £521,817.

DNA on the boxes linked them to Korotkov.

The defendant told police he was a courier, and said he did not know what had been inside the boxes.

Mr Mason told the court that when police arrived, there had been no one else around, which he said indicates that “had he wanted to he could have loaded all the pallets of cigarettes into a truck” and “left the country”.

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He also said that Korotkov had a “significant role”, adding: “[We] accept he is a courier. But this courier has been put in charge of a significant quantity of cigarettes.”

Mark Ruffell, mitigating said though that the courier had “no control” over the operation and that there was “no suggestion” that as an individual, he gained from the fraud.

Korotkov pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud.

Judge Nicholas Rowland said the defendant has personal mitigation and is “otherwise hard-working”.

The 34-year-old was given a two-year sentence suspended for 18 months.

He was also ordered to carry out 260 hours of unpaid work and pay prosecution costs of £1,800 in the next three months.

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