A BRISTOL man has been given a suspended prison sentence after being found with more than 100,000 smuggled cigarettes.

HM Revenue and Customs officers seized the illegally imported cigarettes after police stopped Hardi Mahmood Mohamed on the M5.

Mohamed, a 29-year-old warehouseman from Herbert Crescent, Eastville, was stopped on September 2 last year by police officers at Frankley Services on the M5, near Birmingham. A search of his van revealed nine cardboard boxes, each containing aboutd 640 packets of cigarettes. In total 115,260 cigarettes were seized.

None of the packaging carried the "UK duty paid" markings.

Analysis of the cigarettes showed they were legally manufactured in Moscow for the Russian market.

Mohamed pleaded guilty to evading revenue of about £20,650 at Birmingham Magistrates' Court in June and was given a six-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday. He also received a 12-month supervision order and a 120-hour community punishment order.