50k illegal cigs swoop By David Walsh POLICE have seized £50,000 worth of illegal cigarettes in Barnsley - the latest in a series of pre-Christmas raids dubbed a "war on criminals". Police and Customs officers raided three houses in Monk Bretton and Worsbrough and arrested two men on suspicion of the possession and illegal sale of cigarettes. They were later bailed. Sgt Richard Sainsbury, of the Barnsley Beat team, said hundreds of 'sleeves' had been recovered, each one containing 200 cigarettes in 10 packs of 20. They were a mixture of illegally imported and fake cigarettes which had probably been smuggled in to sell at Christmas, he added. The arrests come after the launch of Operation Impact crackdown on Christmas crime in Barnsley on Monday which netted cannabis plants with a street value of £6,000, cash worth £15,000 and resulted in two arrests. Across the county on the first two days of the two-week operation police made 102 arrests for offences including possession and supply of class A drugs, burglary, theft, handling of stolen goods, assault and theft of vehicles. Sgt Sainsbury said: "If you are a smoker access to illegal cigarettes is not difficult. We believe cigarettes from the consignment seized had been on sale for a while. "But they deprive shopkeepers of income, many are fake, posing a much increased health risk, and money is being poured into the hands of organised criminal gangs." In the last four months more than £55,000 of cannabis had been seized in Barnsley and it was now "quite hard to come by" in the borough, he added. "People are making money cultivating cannabis, but it's just a matter of time before they are caught. In the last 10 days as they ripen the smell is impossible to disperse. Growers can expect a knock on the door." Sgt Sainsbury said operations depended on information from the public - all of which was acted on. He added: "We always do something with information. Sometimes it can take forever - in people's eyes - to do something with it, but we have to do our checks properly. "Working with the council gives us access to a lot information on people, it allows us to build a much more comprehensive case and gives us a better chance of dealing with the problem including conviction and possibly eviction, if they are council tenants."
Bad news - Mass murderer on the loose in Ipswich ........ ...... Good news - SY Police change a few kick off times and find some dodgy fags in Worsbrough ......think a bit of secondment to Suffolk Police wouldn't go a miss. And as for them poor shopkeepers on the breadline cos they can't sell their fags at £5.50 a packet, and the Government can't rake in a load of tax on every packet sold .......bless em!!
So all other police work in the country should be put to one side? Well done to SY police on this. Have I missed something in the news? I take it the police have now ascertained time and location of the murders if it's now a mass murderer on the loose.
nearly everything bar bacca apparently, if you are a smoker and have ever been given one you would know
If it is Jazztobacco i will know. ff Cause then i will get sick and start puking. But I don't live in Barnsley, so I will never test that out
no it aint m8, it stinks and tastes even worse, pure cow dung, honestly if your a cig smoker you wunt touch em
They must taste bad then if a cig smoker wouldn't touch them! I mean, cigs taste foul so how bad must they be?!
Well done SYP Too many people knock the police when they don't meet expectations, then when they do achieve genuine results, they'll want to sneer and belittle what has been done (for some reason). This is a good news story and something for people to be happy about.
RE: They must taste bad then i would not touch those cigarettes that the cops calls fake. Don´t know what is in them. What i find worse, is those anti-smokers fundamentalists. I smoke because i want to. So f**k off
