A BURY pensioner was among seven men sentenced for their part in smuggling more than 250,000 cigarettes in fuel tanks driven from Poland.

Stanley Solarczyk, aged 70, of Pleasant View, Long Lane, pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to fraudulently evade excise duty on a commercial quantity of cigarettes.

He was jailed for six-and-a- half months at Manchester Crown Court last week.

The gang was caught in a Bolton industrial unit by HM Revenue and Customs investigators last January as it tried to retrieve the Viceroy-branded cigarettes with Polish markings.

The cigarettes, worth more than £50,000 in evaded duty, were hidden in the fuel tanks of two HGV tractor units.

Judge Stockdale QC, sentencing the men, said: “This is one single fraudulent transaction, however the conspiracy was professionally planned and sophisticated.”

The gang was led by Abdul Rehman, aged 39, from Bolton, who was on bail for similar offences at the time. He was jailed for 10 months.

Also sentenced were: Waldemar Ociepka, from Swinton, aged 32, jailed for seven and a half months; Khabat Amin, from Manchester, aged 31, and Ahmed Fatih, from Manchester, aged 28, were both sentenced to 20 weeks imprisonment, suspended for 12 months and ordered to undertake 200 hours community work.

Krzysztof Radostaw Wasielewski, from Poland, aged 39, was jailed for six months and Andrej Ireneusz Skulski, from Poland, aged 50, was imprisoned for 10 months. Two other men, who were the gang’s truck drivers, were jailed in 2012.