Customs officials seized a stash of illegal West African booze and cosmetics at Tilbury docks today with an unpaid tax bill of over £5,000.

Thurrock Council’s trading standards team seized the booty while working with Border Force on Saturday March 14.

The haul was discovered in a number of brown boxes hidden at the back of a container declared as containing Gari flour.

The boxes contained large amounts of high strength alcohol (two pallets) and four pallets of cosmetic products not fit for sale on the UK market.

564 bottles of 42 per cent proof alcohol had an unpaid tax bill of £5,000. They were described as none of the usual spirit types and a type of distilled herbal mixture.

Over ten thousand bottles of cosmetic products also had unpaid tax of £300. In all there were 1,500 500ml pots and 9,264 250ml pots.

Border Standards declared the moisturisers not fit for sale in the UK.

The non-compliant bottles were referred to the local trading standards department of the London-based importer to oversee re-labelling.

This work is part of a nationwide market surveillance at ports project, looking at unsafe products being imported or smuggled into the country.