CALLS are being made for council chiefs to fight back against counterfeit cigarettes after figures showed a dismal level of investigation.

In the last year just one prosecution has been made against illegal cigarettes despite concerns over the trade being rampant.

Worcestershire County Council, which oversees the investigation work done by trading standards officers, says it is too "resource intensive" to crack down hard on without any "credible intelligence" of a problem.

The last prosecution in the county was December last year, when a shop owner in Worcester's Lowesmoor was fined in court after officials acting on behalf of the council seized around £10,000 worth of dodgy goods.

By contrast Derbyshire seized £142,000 last year, while Staffordshire took £75,000 worth of counterfeit cigarettes off the shelves.

Councillor Peter McDonald, who leads the opposition Labour group at County Hall, said: "It's rather pathetic when we know millions of pounds of counterfeit cigarettes are going around the Midlands, a month ago it was estimated at £1.1 million worth of cigarettes.

"And we only seized £10,000, it's rather pathetic when you think Staffordshire, one of our neighbours seized £75,000 last year and Derbyshire seized £142,000.

"I suggest we do some more seizing, because we're not doing enough."

But Councillor Lucy Hodgson, the Conservative cabinet member with responsibility for trading standards, said there were concerns over value for money.

A typical court appearance results in fines of between £100 and £500 for the offence and councils do not normally recoup any of their legal costs, with the average case costing the taxpayer £2,500.

Taxpayers' cash also has to be used to hire a sniffer dog in some cases, while some investigations require costly undercover surveillance.

Apart from the Lowesmoor case the only other incident investigated in Worcestershire in the last year was the seizure of counterfeit cigarettes during a drugs raid at a property in Redditch.

In that one, no prosecution took place because investigators decreed that the owner of the dodgy goods could not be confirmed with enough evidence to satisfy a court.

Councillor Hodgson said: "The service only undertakes these types of operations if credible intelligence is received and investigated.

"Since these seizures, no other intelligence or complaints have been received which cross the threshold for resource deployment."

Counterfeit cigarettes flooding Britain contain 500 times as much of a killer toxin as the genuine product, say experts.

The fakes, costing the economy £2 billion a year, are often identified by dodgy logos and bad spelling.