Birmingham Airport asks: ‘how many cigarettes are in this picure’ for a shocking reason

A passenger travelling to Birmingham Airport was caught attempting to bring in thousands of cigarettes above the permitted level.

Birmingham Airport Police shared an image showing the huge number of cigarette boxes they confiscated from a passenger.

When people travel to Great Britain (England, Wales or Scotland) from outside the UK, travel personal allowances mean they can bring in a certain amount of goods without paying tax or duty. When passengers bring in the goods, they must transport it themselves or use it themselves or give them away as a gift.

The tobacco allowance is:

• 200 cigarettes
• 100 cigarillos
• 50 cigars
• 250g tobacco
• 200 sticks of tobacco for electronic heated tobacco devices

Passengers can split this allowance - so they could bring in 100 cigarettes and 25 cigars (both half of the allowance). They may have to pay import VAT, customs duty and excise duty on tobacco when they declare.

The passenger caught by Birmingham Airport Police was significantly above the tobacco allowance limit. The passenger had hundreds of what looked like boxes of Esse cigarettes.

Birmingham Airport Police said in a tweet on May 25: “This passengers plans went up in smoke! Any guesses as to how many cigarettes over the allowed 200 this passenger attempted to get through customs!?”