A man has been jailed for helping smuggle and distribute millions of fake cigarettes.

Police raided a warehouse in St John Business Centre in Canning Street, central Leicester, and found boxes labelled as carrots.

Instead, they contained more than seven-and-a-half million cigarettes, which were labelled as Regal brand but were actually counterfeits smuggled from overseas for sale on the black market.

Jayesh Rayarel, 45, of Martin Drive, Syston, rented the warehouse and had been helping load lorries to distribute the cigarettes.

He appeared at Leicester Crown Court yesterday for sentencing, having been convicted by a jury of three charges of evading excise duty which he had denied.

The court heard the amount of duty that would have been payable on the cigarettes if they were brought into the country and sold legally was almost £1.4m.

Judge Michael Pert, sentenced Rayarel to two years imprisonment.

He said the sentence would have been much longer if he had believed Rayarel was a lead figure in the smuggling operation and stood to make large amounts of cash from the illegal scheme.

Judge Pert said: "It's plain you were active in the loading of vans but there's no evidence that you're a principal – that is someone who stood to make the big money."

The raid at the warehouse in March last year was part of an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

Yesterday's conclusion to the case was welcomed by Peter Hollier, the assistant director of criminal investigation for HMRC.

He said: "This was a blatant attempt to flood the region with counterfeit cigarettes.

"The packaging was expertly crafted, making it impossible to detect they were fakes.

"This was serious organised crime on a massive scale, cheating the country of vital revenue needed to fund public services and impacting hard on honest retailers."

Mr Hollier said the cigarettes had been concealed in boxes marked "Gefrorene Karotten", which is German for "frozen carrots".

During their investigation the HMRC officers discovered a further 396,000 cigarettes in a transit van on the premises.

The cigarettes were all branded Regal Kingsize and following analysis were confirmed as counterfeit.

Now HMRC is beginning confiscation proceedings to reclaim the cash Rayarel received as proceeds of his crime.

Rayarel will serve half of his two-year term and spend the rest on licence.

Another 59 days was reduced from the sentence because of time he had already spent behind bars since being convicted by a jury in May.