£10,000 worth of illegal goods found in Warrington shop

A JOINT investigation between police, Trading Standards, Immigration and HM Revenue and Customs resulted in the discovery of more than £10,000 worth of illegal goods in a Warrington shop.

The discovery was made during a  crackdown on the selling of illegal cigarettes, tobacco and vapes.
Officers from the Foreign National Offender (FNO) team worked alongside LPU colleagues, immigration officers, trading standards and HM Revenue & Customs to seize goods from shops suspected of selling these damaging products to the public.
A search of one premises on Orford Lane resulted in officers locating a well-hidden car key in a secret compartment of the shop that unlocked a van to the rear of the property.Upon opening the van, a stash of £8000 worth of illegal cigarettes and tobacco (14,000 cigarettes and 1kg of hand rolled tobacco), along with £2000 worth of illegal vapes and another £1000 of counterfeit goods was found. Also found in the van were over 300 nitrous oxide canisters which are a class C drug.Additionally, officers from the FNO team and Immigration visited nail bars and beauty outlets across Warrington town centre to conduct checks for any outstanding immigration offences, illegal workers and modern-day slavery risks.
These visits led to three arrests for breach of visa, in which all three suspects had documentation and were escorted to a detention centre while they await their removal from the country.PC

Dave Carr, of the Northern FNO Team said: “We continue to work hard tackling organised criminals operating in our communities and joint operations such as this shows that the feedback and information we receive from the public is acted on robustly.
“While many of these businesses are operating legitimately and within the law, we have seen links to tax evasion, money laundering, drug trafficking and distribution, organised immigration crime, modern day slavery, and human trafficking, along with the sale of illicit tobacco, vapes and counterfeit goods.
“Through continued multi agency operations involving our partner agencies, together we will continue to disrupt and prosecute those organised criminal gangs.
“I hope that the results from this operation will provide reassurance to Warrington residents that we are actively targeting this type of criminality, and we’d encourage anyone with information on other shops in their area selling illicit goods to get in touch either online or via 101 or contact Crime Stoppers anonymously.”