A gang of smugglers hid counterfeit cigarettes under towels to sneak them into Britain and dodge paying tax.

Steven Taylor and four other men concealed the cigarettes among bath and tea towels being brought into the country from Belgium.

But the 58-year-old and his fellow smugglers were brought to justice after half a million Superkings cigarettes were discovered at a storage depot.

Taylor and the others had used the name of a genuine Yorkshirebased textile business to cover their trail using false identities and forged paperwork.

He received a nine-month suspended prison sentence and 150 hours of community service after admitting being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of excise duty.

Taylor, of Shepherds Way in South Chailey, near Lewes, is a director of Haywards Heath-based company TG Logistics and has held five other company directorships.

He claimed to have been contacted by the Yorkshire firm asking him to transport textiles from Belgium.

He told customs officers he had sub-contracted a firm he found in the phone book to carry out the work.

But in fact he was in cahoots with that firm, which was owned by co-defendant Keith Ward.

Ward and another man, Robert Wood, had earlier plotted to find a legitimate company identity to use as a cover for smuggling.

The gang was caught after a delivery lorry stackedwith pallets arrived at a depot in Pontefract in October.

The top layer of pallets contained towels but the rest of the load was made up of 600,000 cigarettes.

Customs officers estimated the loss in tax and duty to be £116,000 if they had been sold.

Taylor was sentenced alongside Ward, 63, of Pontefract, who was jailed for 15 months.

Khyaam Beg, of Manchester, received a four-month suspended jail term, while Wood, of West Yorkshire, received a nine month suspended sentence and 150 hours’ community service.

Michael Ali, of Sunningdale, Berkshire, was jailed for 18 months.

All admitted the charges against them except Beg, who was convicted after a trial.