Prison sentence for illegal importation of smokeless tobacco

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The Helsinki District Court pronounced a prison sentence accompanied by substantial tax fees to a 30-year-old man from Helsinki for illegal importation of smokeless tobacco, generally known hereabouts as snuff or by its Swedish name snus (see link below).
      According to the court the man had purchased tens of thousands of boxes of the smokeless tobacco, which is used by wedging it under the upper lip, between 2004 and 2006 from cruise ships and a kiosk-café in Stockholm, and had sold them on.
      From his trips the man had also brought in cigarettes and alcohol.
     
The court viewed the importation of snus as grave tax evasion. The man was also convicted for a tax fraud related to bringing in a large quantity of cigarettes from Estonia. Furthermore, he was found guilty of a firearms offence, as five gas sprays were found in his possession, for which he did not have a permit.
      The man was sentenced to prison for a year and five months.
     
For the smuggled smokeless tobacco the man was also ordered to pay over EUR 350,000 as the cigarette tax and value-added tax requested by the Customs.
      The purchased quantities of snus were estimated, for instance, based on the man's frequent customer bonus card that he had presented at the onboard shops of Silja Line cruise vessels. In two and a half years the man had purchased just under 8,400 packets of the substance, with each packet containing ten individual 24-gram boxes of smokeless tobacco.
      The man's credit card, in turn, had been used to buy products from Silja Line and Viking Line ferries to a total of more than EUR 160,000.
      In the court's opinion over 80,000 boxes of snus had ended up with unknown consumers.
     
For the most part the man denied the charges. He claimed that the produce was primarily for his personal use and that there was not nearly as much of it as the court claimed.
      He also insisted that he had allowed his friends to use his credit and bonus cards for purchases on ships, in order for him to benefit from the added bonus points. The court failed to buy this explanation.
      In connection with a search of the man's home, in excess of 2,700 boxes were found. The court did not believe they were all for personal use, as at room temperature snus only lasts for a couple of weeks.
     
Three men who had bought smokeless tobacco, cigarettes, and alcohol from the man were also fined for purchasing illegally imported goods. An Estonian man, who had imported a consignment of cigarettes, was fined for tax evasion.
     
Under EU regulations dating back to 1992, the sale of this kind of smokeless tobacco is prohibited in all other Union member states with the exception of Sweden. The Swedes campaigned hard before entry into the EU to make their exemption from the ban a condition of joining. Norway, outside the EU, also permits the sale of snus.
      Use in Finland and import for personal consumption is not prohibited.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Customs intercept exceptionally large quantities of smuggled snuff (9.2.2007)

Links:
  Snus (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat