U.K. visa revoked over cigarette haul

A businessman from Jiangsu Province, China, has been deported from the U.K. after trying to take 35 undeclared cartons of cigarettes into the country, according to a Global Times story quoting a press note put out by the Shanghai Airport Frontier Inspection Station.

The U.K. authorities were said to have seized the cigarettes and revoked the businessman’s two-year business visa.

The businessman, identified only by his surname, Wu, is a commercial representative who often traveled to the U.K.

He said he had intended to give the cigarettes as gifts to clients because of the high taxes they had to pay for tobacco in the U.K.

Before departing for the U.K. from Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Wu was said to have ignored airline staff who warned him that he wasn’t supposed to take so many cigarettes into the U.K.

Because of his deportation, Wu, who arrived back in Shanghai on Wednesday, would be expected to have trouble getting another visa to the U.K.