Illegal tobacco and alcohol worth £150,000 seized in city raids

ILLEGAL cigarettes and alcohol worth more than £150,000 has been seized by trading standards officers in Wolverhampton.

The officers, accompanied by specially trained sniffer dogs, raided four convenience stores in the Whitmore Reans, Penn Fields and Portobello areas of the city.

The raids resulted in more than 16,000 fake and duty free cigarettes as well as hand rolling tobacco and shisha being confiscated.

The sniffer dogs are used to hunt out the potentially lethal products as they are often hidden in some imaginative places.

This time around, the dogs found cigarettes concealed in the ceiling of a toilet as well as a fuse box connected to a walk-in fridge.

The latest raids form part of Operation Riposte, which City of Wolverhampton Council is leading with the support of West Midlands Police and other agencies.

Riposte targets the sale of smuggled tobacco products which can be highly dangerous due to their harmful chemical content. They can also start fires as they don’t self-extinguish when left unattended.

Likewise, counterfeit alcohol can be full of chemicals linked to causing blindness, kidney and liver problems and even death.

Acting on information from the community, Riposte has so far seen the seizure of well over a third of a million smuggled cigarettes and large quantities of hand rolling tobacco. Smuggled alcohol has also been found.

Cllr Steve Evans, Wolverhampton’s cabinet member for city environment, said: “Operation Riposte acts on valuable information we receive from the community about shops which put people’s lives at risk from selling dangerous smuggled cigarettes and alcohol.

“Far from being harmless, these products are supplied by unscrupulous gangs who often fill them with highly dangerous chemicals which can kill.

“Smuggled cigarettes have been known to cause fatal house fires because they don’t self-extinguish unlike legitimate tobacco products. Fake alcohol can cause blindness and death and should not be consumed under any circumstances.”