Wolves Attack Black Market
City of Wolverhampton Council Trading Standards officers have also announced a successful raid on a city business supplying illicit vape products including disposables and eliquids
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by Dave Cross
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City of Wolverhampton Council Trading Standards officers have also announced a successful raid on a city business supplying illicit vape products including disposables and eliquids. The products were seized following reports made by concerned local residents.
The City of Wolverhampton Council’s Trading Standards department announced: “Illicit cigarettes, vapes and tobacco products have been seized from a city business following investigations by officers.
“Acting on complaints, the council’s Trading Standards team and officers from Bilston Police targeted a premises in the city where the goods were believed to be on sale.
“Thousands of illegal items were found in the shop itself as well as in a storeroom and a concealed staircase.”
Officers say they discovered 13,680 illicit cigarettes, 3.1kg of banned hand rolling tobacco and 1,546 illicit disposable vapes. In addition, 12 banned novelty lighters were discovered along with 16 vials of an unidentified liquid, suspected to be nicotine base.
“If genuine, the retail value of the vapes seized is an estimated £15,000, the value of the cigarettes seized is around £9,918 and the value of the hand rolling tobacco would be an estimated £1,890,” the Trading Standards department states.
Action is set to be taken against the owner of the premises where the products were seized while further investigations will be carried out to identify their suppliers.
“Once investigations have been completed, the illegal cigarettes and tobacco will be handed over to a recycling scheme to be dealt with in an environmentally friendly way,” the Department continued.
The seizures, which took place during an operation on 19 March, were carried out under 2 national Trading Standards initiatives, Operation CeCe and Operation Joseph.
Councillor Bhupinder Gakhal, cabinet member for resident services at City of Wolverhampton Council, said: “We are determined to clamp down on the availability of illicit products and are particularly concerned with illegal sales made to our younger residents.
“This operation forms part of our wider strategy in dealing with this issue and we will continue to carry out routine test purchases alongside targeted action days.
“I’d like to congratulate all those involved in this successful partnership operation, including our Trading Standards team and Bilston Police.”
Lord Michael Bichard, Chair, National Trading Standards, said: “The trade in illegal tobacco harms local communities and affects honest businesses operating within the law.
“Having removed 19 million illegal cigarettes and 5,103kg of hand rolling tobacco in 2023 to 2024, Operation CeCe (a National Trading Standards initiative in partnership with HMRC) has taken £27.2 million pounds worth of illicit tobacco off the market since the operation launched in 2021 and continues to successfully disrupt this illicit trade.”
Photo Credit:
Van image by Oli Woodman on Unsplash, cropped and resized
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
