A Wycombe man has been sentenced for selling counterfeit cigarettes.

Shopkeeper Goldi Singh Gurwara, of Anatolia Food Centre in Oxford Street, was sentenced to a 12-month community order on February 5.

At an earlier hearing, Mr Gurwara admitted six charges, three relating to the possession of cigarettes bearing infringing trademarks, namely Richmond, Mayfair and Marlboro.

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A further three charges related to failures to bear the statutory warnings and be in packaging that was the correct colour of dull green.

The court was told that when officers visited the shop on January 19 several foreign labelled tobacco products were discovered under the till counter at the front of the store.

Officers then spotted a staff member from the store loading the boot of a black Vauxhall Zafira, registered to Mr Gurwara, with boxes and large quantities of alcohol, at the rear of Anatolia Food Centre.

They took a closer look inside the car and found tobacco and cigarettes in a large cardboard box and carrier bags.

They seized six 50g pouches of hand rolling tobacco and 428 packets of 20 cigarettes with a retail value of around £4,500.

Trading standards oficers found that all the seixzed goods broke the law.

They discovered that 102 packets of the cigarettes were counterfeit, and the remaining 318 packets of cigarettes and the rolling tobacco were genuine but weren't meant for sale in the UK but other European countries.

Mr Gurwara told officers the cigarettes were left in the shop by a Chinese or Nepalese customer called Fang, but the phone number he provided proved to be an unregistered pay-as-you-go phone.

The court heard that Mr Gurwara, of previous good character, had unsuccessfully appealed against the suspension of his alcohol licence for three months for issues that happened during the same visit which the tobacco was seized.

Magistrates ordered him to do 100 hours of unpaid work during the 12 month community order, and ordered him to pay £1,500 costs and an £85 victims surcharge in the case which was brought by the Buckinghamshire and Surrey Trading Standards.

They ordered all the seized tobacco and cigarettes to be destroyed.

Gareth Williams, Buckinghamshire County Council's Cabinet Member for Community Engagement and Public Health, said: "Let this case be a warning to anyone tempted to deal in illegal cigarettes and tobacco that our Trading Standards officers take their role of enforcement very seriously.

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"All tobacco is harmful, but the supply of illegal cigarettes seriously undermines the drive to reduce smoking, it fuels organised criminality and it's often a gateway for young people to becoming addicted to a habit which prematurely kills over half its users."

To report a trader selling cheap and illegal tobacco, contact the Buckinghamshire Illegal Tobacco Hotline on 0300 999 6 999.