A BRADFORD shopkeeper was caught red-handed unloading almost 100,000 contraband cigarettes to sell under the counter only months after he was fined for similar offences.

Goran Mohamadamin, who fled to the UK from Iraq, was £15,000 in debt while running Zak's Grocery Shop in Great Horton Road, Bradford.

In July last year, magistrates fined the 36-year-old, of Beckside Road, Lidget Green, Bradford, £2,000 after he admitted selling tobacco and cigarettes that breached health rules.

Trading Standards officers raided the shop in November, 2013, and found 96 packets of counterfeit hand-rolling tobacco and 182 packs of cigarettes that did not display the required warnings.

Yesterday, Mohamadamin appeared at Bradford Crown Court to answer similar charges.

Prosecutor Alun Jones said that a police community support officer spotted Mohamadamin transferring 93,600 illegal cigarettes from one vehicle to another on September 6 last year.

He immediately owned up that they were fake.

On September 22, Mohamadamin's house was raided and the police seized a further 5,000 illegal foreign cigarettes.

Mr Jones said the total amount of excise duty evaded by the two hauls was £24,350.

Mohamadamin pleaded guilty to being knowingly concerned in dealing with tobacco products with intent to defraud Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and being knowingly concerned in a fraudulent evasion of duty.

He told the magistrates he would never do such a thing again when he was fined in the lower court.

Mohamadamin's barrister, Shufqat Khan, said: "He had a shot across the bows. He should have known better and he didn't."

His client had fled from Iraq and been granted asylum in the UK.

He was a hard working man who saved up enough to buy the shop but he ran into real financial problems.

"His business acumen was somewhat lacking," Mr Khan said.

Mohamadamin had sold the shop and was now working as a butcher.

His wife was expecting their first child.

"He knows his liberty is at real risk here. He has learned his lesson," Mr Khan told the court.

Judge Mark Savill sentenced Mohamadamin to 11 months imprisonment, suspended for two years, with a probation activity requirement and 200 hours of unpaid work.

He told him: "You think the rules don't apply to you. Your remorse is questionable, given your previous behaviour."

Judge Savill said he was just persuaded to give him another chance but next time he would be going straight to prison.