A truck driver who was caught smuggling 2.9 million cigarettes in a load of mouldy bread has been sentenced to four years and three months in prison.
Bulgarian driver Simion Bocan was stopped at Dover Eastern Docks by Border Force officers in October 2015 and his truck was found to contain cigarettes worth £788,249 in evaded duty.
The cigarettes were contained within 30 pallets of stale frozen baguettes.
An investigation by HMRC found that a trial run was made into the UK using the same load of bread a few days earlier.
The driver fled from the UK while on bail and was extradited from Romania in July 2016.
Bocan pleaded not guilty to the fraudulent evasion of excise duty at Maidstone Crown Court on 31 August 2016, but changed his plea to guilty on 8 December 2016.
