Robert Doran, jailed over smuggling operation in 2012, tried to appeal order to pay £1.45m but the sum was increased

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A convicted tobacco smuggler has been stripped of a prime parcel of riverside land in Kent to meet his more than £4m debt to the public purse.

Robert Doran was jailed for four and a half years in 2012 for bankrolling a large-scale cigarette smuggling operation. The Dubai-based businessman was ordered to pay £1.45m, which he then claimed was “disproportionate” and breached the European convention on human rights.

But in March 2015 the court of appeal rejected his case against the Crown Prosecution Service’s proceeds of crime unit. The judges imposed a new confiscation order of nearly £4.4m – the total benefit of the criminal enterprise – plus interest of £200,000.



The decision was upheld by the supreme court last year.

HMRC, working jointly with the CPS, secured a restraint order to help force Doran, 51, to part with the land in Dartford – his main asset in the UK. The holding was sold this month.



The order was the result of a lengthy HMRC investigation that revealed a complex web of companies, ownerships and leases to confirm that Doran, who lived in a Dubai apartment worth millions and drove sports cars, owned the land.



David Cowie, the assistant director of HMRC’s fraud investigation service, said: “His brazen attempts to have the confiscation order quashed backfired spectacularly. Doran lived the high life in Dubai but has already spent years behind British bars. HMRC and our partner agencies will work together to strip criminals of the proceeds of their crimes.”

Lorraine Lally, a prosecutor in the CPS proceeds of crime unit, said Doran had spent years trying to avoid paying what he owed the taxpayer. “Fraudsters need to realise that we will go further than just imprisonment. If convicted, we can and will track down and confiscate the proceeds of their crimes,” she said.

Doran and his accomplice, Patrick Gray, supplied the finance for the smuggling operation. The pair were also involved in the purchase, packaging and shipment of the cigarettes.

The crime was discovered after documents were examined from two freight containers that arrived at the Port of Felixstowe. They claimed the containers were filled with more than 1,000 cartons of baby toys, but they were crammed with about 20m cigarettes, evading £3.8m in duty and taxes.