A man has been hit with over £1,000 of fines and costs after a sniffer dog rooted out illegal tobacco in a Chesham store.

Trading Standards, police and licensing officers teamed up to raid Chesham Food and Wine in White Hill last May and uncovered hidden tobacco.

The owner, Amarpreet Singh Malhotra, had denied selling illicit tobacco but was caught out when a sniffer dog found Marlboro Gold cigarettes hidden in a stool behind the counter.

The dog then led the officers to pouches of Amber Leaf hand-rolling tobacco concealed in empty packing under the counter.

Neither the cigarettes or the tobacco had English warnings and were not in the standard UK plain green packaging.

Officers seized seven 50g pouches of Amber Leaf tobacco and seven packs of 20 Marlboro Gold cigarettes, with a retail value of £287.

When Mr Malhotra was interviewed in October last year, he said a friend at his gym sold him a carton of ten packs of 20 Marlboro and ten pouches of Amber Leaf.

He told officers he bought them for his own use and then decided he would smoke half and sell half, because other stores in Chesham sold cheap tobacco and he wanted to attract trade into his store.

On Wednesday (11 March) at Wycombe Magistrates Court, Mr Malhotra admitted four counts of supplying illegally labelled cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco.

He was fined £400, ordered to pay costs of £627 and a victim surcharge of £32. Magistrates also ordered the destruction of the seized tobacco and cigarettes.

Gareth Williams, Buckinghamshire County Council's Cabinet Member for Community Engagement and Public Health, said: "Let this case be a warning to anyone tempted to deal in illegal cigarettes and tobacco that our Trading Standards officers take their role of enforcement very seriously.

"All tobacco is harmful, but the supply of illegal cigarettes seriously undermines the drive to reduce smoking, it fuels organised criminality and it's often a gateway for young people to becoming addicted to a habit which prematurely kills over half its users."