63,016 individual seizures at UK Airports re cigarettes per year ... the hidden figures by HMRC/UKBA

HMRC/UKBA have never released the full extent of their endless onslaught on legitimate Cross-Border Shoppers. ln their official yearly progress reports they try to cover it up by supposedly giving these figures but actually they don't.

Take the figures from the 2009 report (P.41 Table 5. Excise Fraud)  for the number of cigarettes seized in 2008/9 :-


Overseas seizures                            855m
Air seizures                                     244m
Inland seizures                                180m
Maritime seizures                            557m

Cross channel passenger seizures      11m
Number (how many people) of cross channel seizures    2,836 (average 3878 cigarettes per seizure) Remember what UKBA guidelines say for Croos Border Shopping? ... 3200!

So you are lead to believe that only 2836 cross-channel seizures happened in 2008/9 ... but in the same report they say 5618 vehicles were seized!!!   Mmmm ... so every seizure they seized 2 vehicles???? No foot passengers? Can't be right can it?

lt says Cross-Channel Seizures .... NOT CROSS-BORDER SEIZURES...  so does that actually mean those that actually crossed the Channel and arrived in Dover and other UK ports? Those that didn't are NOT shown then .... so where are they? Ahhh they have a figure for cigarettes seized re Overseas Seizures and it shows they seized 855m cigarettes whereas Cross-Channel Seizures only amount to 11m. cigarettes. We only have border control juxtaposed in Calais, Dunkirk, Coquelles and Boulogne and in Belgium Zeebrugge (here checking lorries and freight). This is what is classed as Overseas Seizures and accounted for 855m in seizures but no actual seizure numbers (people)??? They are obviously frightened to death of releasing the actual numbers. No wonder when they attribute 2836 Cross-Channel Seizures to only 11m cigarettes <<< so they are getting only 1.3% in Cross-Channel Seizures compared with Overseas Seizures. So the number of Cross Channel Seizures of  2836 is also only 1.3 % compared against the number of seizures Overseas ie Calais? 

That's a bloody lot isn't it? There may ofcourse be lorries with a million cigarettes or so seized Overseas but lorries get seized in Dover too. Can't handle them figures ....

Let's look at Air Seizures then and compare it to the Cross-Channel Seizures. Theres no lorries or cars involved here, luggage is restricted to 20-25kg. They state that 244m cigarettes were seized re Air Seizures. The figure of 11m cigarettes is only 4.5% of 244m cigarettes. 

The number (people) of Cross-Channel Seizures is also 4.5% compared to Air Seizures then ... it has to be. Therefore the number of Air Seizures is 63,016!

Divide that number of 63.016 by the number of main UK airports (31) and you get an average of 2032 seizures per airport per year. Now divide that number of 2032 by the number of days in the year (365) and you get just over 5 seizures per day per airport. Not so unbelievable now is it!

This figure does NOT include HRT (tobacco) or Maritime Seizures or lnland Seizures or Overseas Seizures. 

FOI's have gone into UKBA for their total number of seizures per year .... do you think they'll give them?  :)