A Derby shop owner has been sentenced to three years and eight months in prison and ordered to pay £20,000 at Derby Crown Court for a raft of illicit tobacco offences.  

This follows an investigation by Derby City Council Trading Standards into offences committed in 2022, while Mr Amin was serving a suspended sentence for previous offences. 

Amin Ismail Amin was charged with 33 offences under the Trade Marks Act 1994 and the Tobacco Related Products Regulations 2016. These offences took place at six shops on 11 separate occasions across Derby.  

On top of this, further offences were also discovered in Derbyshire (10), Lincolnshire (10) and Birmingham (5). Mr Amin pleaded guilty to these offences, which were transferred to Derby Crown to be sentenced as one. 

Mr Amin pleaded guilty to 33 offences in Derby City and ten in Derbyshire on 21 May 2024. At Derby Crown Court on Wednesday 12 March, he was sentenced to a total of 3 years and 8 months in prison and ordered to pay a total of £20,000 in costs. 

He was also disqualified from being a director of any limited company for 10 years. Judge Straw stated that Mr Amin would serve up to half of his sentence in custody before being released on licence. 

In Derby, Trading Standards officers uncovered a vast array of illicit products, including 24,700 cigarettes and 6.4kg of hand rolling tobacco. In all these products were worth over £15,000 and evaded more than £11,000 of duty. The products were: 

  • 271 packets of counterfeit cigarettes 
  • 150g of counterfeit hand rolling tobacco 
  • 1,143 packets of cigarettes without the correct health warnings 
  • 5.3kg of hand rolling tobacco without the correct health warnings 

Councillor Shiraz Khan, Cabinet Member for Housing, Property and Regulatory Services, said: 

As a council we have a duty of care to our citizens, and this sentencing should serve as a reminder that we are prepared to use whatever avenues necessary to keep our citizens safe from illicit products. 

I’m delighted with the work of our Trading Standards team as they continue to clamp down on the sale of dangerous tobacco products.