Essex shop owner ordered to pay over £3,800 after caught selling counterfeit cigarettes

The owner of a shop in Grays, Essex has been ordered to pay more than £3,000 after Thurrock Council’s trading standards team found counterfeit tobacco and vapes.

On Tuesday October, Basildon Magistrates Court ordered Diyar Yousif, 44, of Homemead Close, Kent, to pay £1,132 in fines, £1,963 costs and a victim surcharge of £772. Yousif pled guilty to five offences including failing to comply with tobacco and vape regulations.

The council’s trading standards officers visited Mellow Yellow Vape Shack, also known as Euro Market, in March 2023 where an officer was sold counterfeit tobacco during a test purchase. Illegal products including counterfeit rolling tobacco and vapes were seized when officers revisited the premises.

“Counterfeit tobacco and vapes can have a devastating effect on our communities, and present a much greater health risk to the public. Our trading standards team works hard to keep residents safe from illegal and harmful products,” Cllr Victoria Holloway, cabinet member for place and the environment at Thurrock Council, said

The action was part of joint HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and National Trading Standards initiative Operation CeCe, which has been working to seize illicit tobacco since January 2021.

Lord Michael Bichard, Chair, National Trading Standards, said: “The trade in illegal tobacco harms local communities and affects honest businesses operating within the law. Having removed 46 million illegal cigarettes, 12,600kg of hand rolling tobacco and almost 175kg of shisha products from sale, Operation CeCe, the National Trading Standards initiative in partnership with HMRC continues to successfully disrupt this illicit trade.”

The fine follows similar recent successful Thurrock trading standards prosecutions which have seen other tobacconists and vape shop owners fined for selling illicit products and a food wholesaler fined for selling contaminated cooking oil.