Police smash gang selling fake Viagra and illegal vapes

SWNS

Police dismantled a gang selling fake Viagra and illegal vapes in a series of raids on Birmingham shops last night (26/11).  The operation, led by Mohammed Tariq from Trading Standards, uncovered counterfeit tobacco, fake vapes, snuff, and other illegal imports, with hundreds of items seized.  Video footage shows one man being arrested during the operation.

Transcript

00:00So this is a vehicle that's not installed yet, while the officer is dealing with this

00:25we're going to go into the premises that concerned

00:31Can I leave this with you for a second then Ben?

00:55We've also got illicit tobacco, it hasn't got the markings on it, it's so broad you can tell straight away, that's been imported

01:08Nitrous oxide, so according to the intel we received we've got nitrous oxide, illicit tobacco

01:16and loads of vapes. Obviously it's linked to anti-social behaviour and we're going to cut

01:21down hard on these traders, so we're just going to have a look around what else we can find.

01:25Obviously we've got our colleagues upstairs, we'll go up there and have a look and then

01:30have a look around the shop and go and have a look at the other shops as well.

01:35We've got the illicit vapes here, we've got like 18,000 puffs, 15,000 puffs, can't sell them.

01:44Thank you, all right stay there while my officers are having a look around the premises okay.

01:51Thank you. With counterfeiting right, if they haven't been put through the right sort of testing

01:56then you just don't know what's in there, so there is a risk to public health. Obviously we'll send

02:00these off, the counterfeit ones to the trademark holders, they'll give us a statement then we'll

02:05take further action. Obviously with premises like this, we'll do this raid, tomorrow they'll be

02:10stocked up again so basically the sort of approach we're going to try taking is looking at disclosure

02:16or actually prosecuting them, because obviously the public don't want this sort of stuff being

02:22sold. What else we've got is snuff products, smokeless tobacco, they're not supposed to be

02:26selling these, they've got no health warnings on there, nothing at all. These have been imported

02:32clearly from you know Pakistan or Afghanistan, four thousand plus.

02:37We've got eighteen thousand, I think that's fifteen thousand.

02:55Unauthorised sex pills, Viagra type, Viagra style type pills. These are absolutely dangerous,

03:04because these haven't been tested or anything, and if someone's got a bad heart condition,

03:34they're not allowed to be distributed in the UK market, it comes from Afghanistan.

04:04They're not, they haven't been tested, they're not been appealed to have an order of

04:08citizenship, and there's a lot of things in the actual stuff.

04:34I've never actually been in a car.

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