A SURBITON man has been ordered to pay nearly £100,000 after he was caught smuggling up to four million cigarettes into the country.
Hatem Bin Ali Arafaoui, 34, of Elmbridge Avenue, worked as a van driver for Interlink Express and collected the tobacco, which had been smuggled in a freight container from Tunisia, from a warehouse at Heathrow Airport.
He was caught driving 200,000 cigarettes away in September 2006.
Further investigations by customs officers linked him to a total of 13 importations between March 2005 and September 2006, bringing in around four million cigarettes, evading more than £850,000 in tax.
Arafaoui is already serving three years and nine months in prison for smuggling but if he fails to pay the £97,850 asset confiscation order within four months he faces an extra 18 months inside.
