A heavy smoker caught smuggling cigarettes into Scotland from Poland will have to cough up over £9,000 after admitting in court that she had been attempting to evade the duty payable.
Paisley Sheriff Court heard how Iwona Monica Kowal, a student from Dundee, was caught on three separate occasions by UK Border Agency staff after flying from Poland into Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports.
She was caught with a total of 33,800 cigarettes stuffed into her baggage. The Excise Duty on the haul would have been £9,240.84.
Depute fiscal Frank Clarke said that after being intercepted carrying 15,800 contraband cigarettes and subsequently quizzed by officers of HM Revenue & Customs as she flew in to Glasgow Airport on April 8, 2013, Kowal was issued with a warning and given documentation outlining what the personal entitlement was.
Despite that, she was caught on two further occasions always while entering the green nothing-to-declare Customs channel.
On June 2, she was found to have 15,000 cigarettes in her luggage on arrival at Edinburgh Airport from Gdansk and on October 21, she attempted to bring in 3,800 cigarettes.
Mr Clarke said that the upper limit was 800 cigarettes and that had previously been explained to the 44-year-old.
On each occasion, she maintained the cigarettes were for herself, her partner and a friend.
Defence agent Charlie McCusker told the court that following the sudden death of her son, his client had become a heavy smoker to help her deal with the grief she felt.
Sheriff Colin Pettigrew made Kowal the subject of a 12-month community payback order requiring her to complete 200 hours of unpaid work in a nine-month period.