A Perivale off-licence has been fined more than £6,500 after Ealing Council trading standards officers discovered a haul of illegal cigarettes imported from Poland.
Ealing magistrates ordered MS Foods and Wine Ltd, which trades as Bilton Foods and Wines on 52 Bilton Road, along with its director Navaratnarajah Menakan and store manager Anilash Prabha Sudhakaran, to pay £6,565 in fines and costs after they admitted to five offences each relating to the supply of non-duty-paid tobacco.
The case followed a 2023 raid by Ealing Council’s trading standards team, who uncovered 640 illegal cigarettes inside the shop and a further 2,800 in Sudhakaran’s van parked outside.
The seized cigarettes breached multiple UK laws. They were not in plain packaging, as required under the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 and they lacked mandatory health warnings under the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016. They were also not subject to UK excise duty.
Investigators confirmed that the cigarettes had been brought into the UK from Poland. According to council officers, the borough seizes illicit tobacco from across the globe, with counterfeit and non-compliant products arriving from a wide range of countries.
Councillor Kamaljit Nagpal, Ealing’s cabinet member for decent living incomes, said: “Thanks to the hard work of our trading standards officers, these illegal and unsafe products have been removed from the marketplace. Investigating these cases costs the council money, which would be better spent supporting our residents elsewhere.”
Councillor Nagpal added: “Illegal products like these pose a direct safety risk to our residents. We will continue to crackdown on traders who supply illicit products in our borough. You can play your part in supporting our community by reporting any concerns to our team.”
Ealing Council is encouraging residents to report to its trading standards team any businesses suspected of selling illicit products by emailing: tradingstandards@ealing.gov.uk.
