A MASSIVE international smuggling scam was foiled by customs officers who discovered more than seven million cigarettes stashed in a village near Evesham.

The five-strong gang was also planning to ship another eight million into the country, depriving the Crown of more than £2m in duty, Worcester Crown Court was told last Thursday.

In August 1999, customs officers at Felixstowe found 7,450,000 contraband cigarettes stashed behind boxes of rubber hoses in a Greek container.

Papers showed the haul was destined for JW Morley Potato Suppliers at Hood Lane Farm, Ansley, Warwickshire.

The lorry was allowed to carry on under surveillance and customs officers caught Matthew Kitely, Paul Elam and Andrew Lillis unloading the stash at Badgers Hill, Sheriffs Lench.

A second container on the way to the same farm was picked up by Spanish customs officers.

Almost 7.7m cigarettes had been packed into it.

Three months later, customs intercepted a German-registered lorry delivering tomato puree at Nightingale Farm, Bentley, Atherstone, and again found Kitely, aged 29, Elam, 32, and Lillis, 32, along with Mark Williams, 41, unloading the cans.

Officers recovered 200,000 cigarettes, and Danilo Legrottaglie, 28, and Stefanafo Ratti, 36, were seen leaving the farm.

Kitely, of Stretton Avenue, Coventry, Lillis, of Lower Eastern Green Lane, Coventry, and Barry Parr, 50, of Crampers Field, Coventry - who helped organise the scam - Elam, of Cleaver Gardens, Weddington, Northampton, and Ratti, of Lugano, Switzerland, were all convicted of fraudulent evasion of VAT and excise duty.

They were all ordered to return to court on November 12 when pre-sentence reports will have been prepared.

Four others, Alan Keast, 35, of Elizabeth Drive, Leafields, Tamworth, Legrottaglie, of Hopner Close, Leicester, James Morley, 29, of Hood Lane Farm, Ansley, and Williams, of Churchill Avenue, Foleshill, Coventry, were cleared.

"This was an excellent result," said Mark Powell, spokesman for Customs and Excise.

"This was a smuggling gang with international links which thought they had a foolproof method of defrauding the taxpayer."