Police warn organised crime taking over UK high streets | Politics | News
A wave of organized crime has taken control of Britain’s high streets, with thousands of shops involved in money laundering, illegal operating and counterfeit sales. The National Crime Agency launched a major investigation after raiding 2,700 stores in October. But authorities fear landlords struggling to fill vacant properties are increasingly willing to rent their properties to criminals.
The growing problem was revealed by Sal Melki, Deputy Director of Economic Crime at the National Crime Agency. He said: “We are seeing thousands of shops engaging in so-called low-level crime. This is most visible in terms of small-scale illegal sales of vapes and illegal tobacco. We also see illegal working and illegal renting, for example renting beds at the back of shops, as well as small-scale money laundering.”
Mr Melki, the former Scotland Yard detective, said individual shops laundered relatively small amounts of criminal money but the overall impact was so large that some of the money went to criminal gangs in Iraq or Afghanistan.
“Many of these stores will sell well under thousands of pounds a month. “The cumulative effect of thousands of stores is quite detrimental and quite a challenge.
“Because there are thousands of people in the country, the total impact is huge.”
Shop owners may not realize the damage they are doing, he said.
“What we don’t see at the bottom of the pyramid is that shopkeepers feel like they’re part of a wider organized crime ecosystem. But of course, if you’re selling illegal vaping or illegal tobacco, that’s part of a wider criminal supply chain to get those goods into the country.”
He also said there were “hundreds” of stores across the country involved in organized crime on a larger scale.
“At the top of the pyramid, we see hundreds of stores where the level of crime is organized. This could be selling thousands of counterfeit goods, distributing drugs, or laundering millions of liras.”
He said the National Crime Agency was working on an investigation to assess the extent of crime in the retail sector.
The so-called “illegal high street” has become a top concern for trading standards professionals across the country, according to Wendy Martin, National Director of Trading Standards, a government-funded organisation.
He said authorities were dealing with “criminal shops selling all kinds of things,” including unsafe products.
“This situation has become much more concerning in the last five years.”
The House of Commons Business and Trade Committee launched an investigation into the issue and the Home Office wrote to policing minister Sarah Jones. Former Treasury Secretary Liam Byrne, chairman of the committee, said: “We have heard the most appalling evidence from across the country and we can see it in our own constituencies too.
“It seems to us that there is a wave of organized crime taking over the British high street.”
