A transport manager who used his haulage company contacts to mastermind the smuggling of at least 25 million cigarettes into Britain has been told he deserves every day of his four-year jail term.
Malcolm Noble was an executive at the South Shields wholesale and clothes distributor Visage Import when he moved into the smuggling racket as a sideline.
Each consignment of contraband cigarettes earned him £2,000 - but at his 2006 trial Newcastle Crown Court was told each shipment had cheated the taxman out of £1.4m.
The racket came to an end when a crate - part of a consignment of jackets being delivered to a Leicester warehouse - was accidentally dropped and broke apart, spilling out cigarettes. The consignment was then searched and nine million cigarettes were discovered. Customs officers checked two more Visage containers that had just arrived from Rotterdam, finding another 16 million cigarettes worth nearly £2.5m in lost duty and VAT.
Noble, of West Denton, Newcastle, was jailed in December 2006 after admitting fraudulently evading the duty on the goods.
Rejecting the claim that his four-year term was "too harsh", the Appeal Court has ruled the original sentence was "not manifestly excessive".
After the hearing, an HM Revenue and Customs spokesman admitted Noble had merely been the figurehead and fixer behind a wider smuggling operation.
