Couple used home as smugglers' cove

A couple who paid for their Northampton home through a tobacco smuggling scam has been sentenced.

HM Revenue and Customs discovered Rimandas Urvakis, 59, was using the house he shared with wife Marija Urvakiene, 61, as a distribution hub after 179,000 cigarettes were found in their garage in November 2011.

Five months later, with a criminal investigation underway, HMRC seized a further 5,000 illicit cigarettes from the pair’s home on Howards Way in Moulton.

The fraud was uncovered when Northamptonshire Police spotted Urvakis meeting a lorry driver in a car park off the M1 outside Northampton just before midnight in November 2011. After placing two bags into the boot of his Volkswagen Passat, Urvakis drove away before being pulled over by the officers moments later.

Both admitted money laundering and Urvakis admitted evading £37,145.30 in duty. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work.

Urvakiene was sentenced to 16 months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work.

Their home, cash and other assets will be the subject of a Proceeds of Crime confiscation hearing in March.