A BOOTLEGGER, who tried to smuggle £1.8 million cigarettes through Southampton Docks, will be sentenced next month.

Jurors heard that customs officers discovered the contraband hidden in a container which, according to the manifest, had only Chinese foodstuffs.

A substituted driver then took the load to a warehouse in Wembley, north London, run by 50-year-old Boon Phuah, who was seen helping with its unloading.

Matthew Scott, prosecuting at the city crown court, said the cigarettes had ironically been manufactured in Southampton and were exported to the Far East but were not sold.

The cigarettes were then shipped back to England.

Duty evaded on the cigarettes amounted to more than £220,000.

Phuah denied bootlegging. He told investigators the first he knew of the cigarettes was through a call - after the ship had sailed - from a man called Wing in Malaysia, who told him they would be collected from his warehouse.

Phuah, from Wembley, was bailed pending sentence on August 8.