Big Beer Crime – British Beer Smugglers Busted

Big Beer is big money….And where there’s money to be made, there can also be crime.

Just ask four UK-based beer smugglers who were recently jailed for smuggling beer from France, Belgium and Germany into England.

We’re not talking sophisticated crime here (it seldom is with beer)…

Using duplicated paperwork to divert authorities, the beer smugglers brought truckloads of Big Beer brands like Budweiser, Carlsberg and Stella Artois, over from Europe (you’ve got to love the Chunnel) to be sold without the proper duty having been paid.

So this is a tax evasion crime first…But it’s also a Big Beer crime which is why we’re bothering you with it.

The beer gangsters were busted by HM Revenue and Customs following an investigation launched in 2013, which discovered that the crew had been selling untaxed beer to retailers under the company name Expo Cash & Carry Ltd (a perfect name for a criminal front…just sayin’).

According to the intrepid reporters at the Drinks Business, the HMRC initially seized more than 425,000 liters of beer, as well as £68,000 in cash. And they’ve since then projected the illegal beer activity, (which took place between 2012 and 2014), to be worth £3.8 million in unpaid taxes.

And in an act of that would have made Tony Soprano proud, The gang’s ringleader Huseyin Zerze, admitted to having used The Pita Sandwich Shop to launder his illicit beer profits…

His beer bust netted him seven years in a UK jail which, if Peaky Blinders is any indication, is not going to be a picnic.

The rest of his crew (all now looking at several beer-less years) were also sentenced to differing prison stays, ranging from five years down to two.

And if you think that beer crime is limited to the United Kingdom….think again.

Check out: BLATANT ACT OF BEER SPRAYING ENDS IN JAIL