n Simon Mowbray reports on the hi-tech war being waged between smugglers and customs officers in a multi-billion pound racket Like a scene from a James Bond movie, an overall-clad worker presses a button to get at the highly illegal stash of contraband cunningly stored inside a giant truck. At the flick of his finger, the whole upper body of the 30-tonne artic is magically lifted into the air, revealing the hidden cargo ­ one million cigarettes, all in pristine cartons lying in a cavity above the vehicle's axle. But despite the hidden bounty's £225,000 street value, this is no breach of national security and there is no sign of a tuxedo-ed 007 waiting in the wings to pounce on the baddies responsible. Instead, it is an all-too-common scene at a Customs & Excise inspecting shed in Dover. "The thing with modern-day smugglers is that they are getting more and more sophisticated," says Nigel Knott, spokesman for Customs & Excise in the south-east of England. "Just like our methods of detection are constantly evolving, they too are looking for new ways to get past us." And why shouldn't they? After all, it's a very lucrative business with latest Treasury figures showing that cigarette smuggling cost £3bn in lost revenue during the last financial year alone. By contrast, Customs & Excise's haul of 2.1 billion cigarettes in the nine months to December (1.4 billion at British ports and airports, 0.7 billion en route) was worth a modest £472.5m. Even if the figures for the final three months to March bear out an unprecedented surge of seizures, they will still have to go some to breach the shortfall. In the meantime, the hi-tech lorry example at Dover, although more startling than most, is not untypical, with everything from cargo to spare tyres being used to stash cigarettes. Nevertheless, Knott insists Britain's army of dedicated Customs officers have far from thrown in the towel. "We are getting more and more successful at stopping these guys," he insists. "We know how they are bringing the stuff in. It's just a case of catching them among the millions of travellers who come through our ports every year." Certainly, it would be impossible to stop everybody. For example, Dover is the busiest roll-on, roll-off port in the world with more than 14 million passengers a year, while another seven million travel by the Channel Tunnel. Policing such large volumes of traffic is hard work and it is inevitable that smugglers slip through the net. However, that doesn't mean that anyone who gets away with it once, or even several times, will get away with it for ever. Just ask the gentleman whose £40,000 silver Mercedes now rests outside the Channel Tunnel passenger terminal building at Ceriton in Kent as a monument to the perils of smuggling. "We caught him with more than 80,000 cigarettes," says Knott. "He claimed they were for personal consumption but the guidelines limit passengers to 800 each. Even smoking 40 a day, it would have taken him more than five years to get through the lot and records showed he was a regular on that route. We decided to confiscate his car, as we are allowed to do by law, and then park it at Ceriton to serve as a reminder to others." The man, from north Kent, is not alone in so openly flouting Britain's import laws, although he at least did not involve children in his illegal run through the Tunnel. "Some things we come across are despicable," says Knott. "We have caught parents who have stuffed cartons of cigarettes in their children's backpacks and clothing." Yet prosecutions are rare, says Knott. Instead, prompted by government advice, Customs officers hit the smugglers where it hurts most ­ in the pocket, by seizing all contrabrand and vehicles. One confiscated artic, for example, is doing the showground circuit as a Customs display vehicle. "The owners can appeal, but rarely get anywhere because evidence is stacked against them," adds Knott. "Cigarette smuggling is a risky business, one which we have no intention of loosening our grip on." n {{FEATURES }}