£26m Doncaster cig smuggler caught on Costa del Crime
Doncaster tobacco smuggler who fled to Spain during his trial to avoid prison, has been caught and returned to the UK to begin his sentence. John Sabin, 58, of York Road, Doncaster, was part of an eight-strong gang that transported millions of smuggled cigarettes across the north of England to warehouses, storage yards and farms with the intention of selling them at a profit and evading duty. He escaped justice after being convicted for his part in a £26 million tobacco smuggling operation which involved more than 150 million illicit cigarettes and tonnes of low-quality tobacco. He was subsequently sentenced in his absence to two years and nine months in prison. Sabin was added to HM Revenue and Customs’ list of Most Wanted tax fugitives. After a public appeal for help by HMRC last month, he was tracked down by Spanish police to Malaga, on the Costa del Sol, where he was working in a bar.
Spanish police are holding 10 people including a former Guantanamo Bay detainee for allegedly recruiting jihadi militants to fight abroad, mainly in Iraq and Syria. The National Court said Tuesday they would appear before a judge soon. An Interior Ministry statement said eight of the suspects were Moroccans or men born in Morocco. An Argentine and a Bulgarian were also detained in Monday’s raids. The ministry identified one of those arrested, Moroccan Lahcen Ikassrien, as the suspected leader of the cell which had sent nine militants to fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL. Ikassrien had been arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 and held at Guantanamo Bay. He was extradited to Spain in 2005, but was acquitted for lack of evidence a year later.
