Jubilant Customs officials have seized two million counterfeit and illegal cigarettes from a Birmingham lock-up in one of the city’s biggest ever seizures.

Four men were arrested in Tuesday’s swoop and three vans laden impounded, along with mobile phones, computers and cash.

One official told The Birmingham Mail: “This is massive. We have no doubt these cigarettes were destined for West Midland streets.

“On the high street they would have sold for £3.50 a packet.”

The revenue loss alone from the haul would have been a massive £500,000.

But buyers who snapped-up the ‘Masters’ and ‘Mayfair’ brands could have been inhaling something a lot more harmful than tar and nicotine.

The Mayfair stash was completely fake. Tests of previously-seized counterfeit hauls revealed they were packed with sawdust and even camel dung.

The packets of Masters were described as ‘illicit whites’, meaning they cannot be legally bought in this country.

Officers also searched a house in Birmingham.

They arrested a 29-year-old from the city, a 30-year-old from Stoke, a 32-year-old Glaswegian and a 29-year-old from North Lanarkshire. The quartet were bailed until November.

Adrian Farley, HM Revenue and Customs director of criminal investigations, said: “This was a significant haul of illicit cigarettes, including counterfeit brands and those which have no legal UK market.

“Low-cost tobacco products can often seem very attractive to people, lured into buying them at what seem like bargain prices.

“The truth is these goods have been smuggled, often by organised crime gangs, and sales are unlicensed and unregulated.

“We all pay extra to compensate for the money these criminals steal and HMRC remains relentless in our work to deter and disrupt this illegal trade.”