Grooming gangs using rogue vape shops to exploit vulnerable children o | UK | News

Grooming gangs target vulnerable children for sexual exploitation by selling e-cigarettes from some of the rogue shops that populate the UK’s high streets. Trading Standards officers uncovered shocking sexual abuse of children as young as 11; e-cigarettes were used as a hook to lure them into organized crime networks. There are now urgent calls for the Government to take action to tackle the growing threat, which crisis officials have branded an “epidemic”.

An investigation has revealed Trading Standards’ concerns about a new undercover crime front on Britain’s high streets, showing rogue vape shops now linked to child sex gangs. The investigation reveals how some shops selling illegal e-cigarettes to children may pose wider safeguarding risks; A potential new form of childcare is clearly taking place, officials warn.

The investigation, revealed to Channel 4 News, found Trading Standards teams nationally believed illegal e-cigarettes were just one part of a wider criminal network involving illicit tobacco, nitrous oxide and other drugs.

But they fear children are exposed to much more serious dangers, both from illegal substances and from people who try to abuse them.

It comes after the Daily Express revealed how care gangs have adapted their operations to continue soliciting victims, even trying to find work in the social care system and even exploiting legal loopholes to potentially provide their own care homes to take vulnerable children to. A senior lawyer told the Express that “no child in the UK is safe anymore” from the threat posed by gangs operating online to hunt down vulnerable victims.

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Chief Trading Standards Officer Kuldeep Maan said: “The biggest threat is to our children. These shops are tagged, no one knows what is going on. We have had complaints that e-cigarettes and illegal goods are being given away for free to children in exchange for occasional sexual favors. We have received these complaints before.”

Kuldeep and bailiff Richard Timmins currently spend most of their days shutting down mini-marts, particularly for selling illegal e-cigarettes to children.

“There was one the other day where an 11-year-old kid was buying an e-cigarette from a store. It’s really disgusting,” Richard said. “They may be offered drugs, vapes, cigarettes; this is a danger,” adds Kuldeep.

Their work led them to believe that despite all that was known about child care, they had uncovered a new hidden front.

“We call people behind the counter to empty their pockets. We’ve had situations where they’ve emptied their pockets and taken wads of condoms. I once came across a book and it was basically written in Kurdish and translated and they were learning English words that basically meant ‘you’re so beautiful, I love your hair, you know, you’re young and beautiful’.”

Last summer, the team received reports that men associated with a store were taking 12-year-old customers to unknown locations. Acting as an unofficial child protection service, officers say they prioritize these safeguarding risks when determining which businesses to close first.

Kuldeep added, “Our first priority is to stop that shop first. So we will focus all our efforts on one particular shop, we will shut it down.

“We need the government’s help. We can do this with additional funding. The government needs to address the issue and recognize the threat posed to every high street in this country by these organized crime groups.”