A former Police Officer has hit out at the state of "lawless Britain" as the National Crime Agency exposed their latest money laundering raid - targeting barber shops and vape shops.Operation Machinize saw 265 premises visited by police in a money laundering crackdown - seizing more than £40,000 in cash, 200,000 cigarettes, 7,000 packs of tobacco, over 8,000 illegal vapes and two vehicles.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Hundreds of barbershops are being targeted in a nationwide money laundering sting.
00:05Yes, Operation Machinise.
00:07I don't think that's how you...
00:08Machinise?
00:09Machinise.
00:10Seize the National Crime...
00:11I don't know why I made it Italian.
00:13Seize the National Crime Agency target high street crime,
00:16where gangs take advantage of cash-reliant businesses.
00:18Now, this is going on everywhere, isn't it?
00:20Oh, it certainly is.
00:21I think just about every town in the country has seen some sort of new barbershop or vape shop
00:27that never seems to have anyone in it.
00:28No, no one buys you vapes.
00:30Lush with cash.
00:31Well, Norman Brennan, I believe, has been on a few raids like this,
00:34retired police officer and director of the Law and Order Foundation.
00:37Norman, are the police only just clocking on to this?
00:40Or, you know, behind the scenes, do you reckon they've been looking into this more?
00:45Yeah, good afternoon, Tom and Emily.
00:47I'll be quite honest with you, I haven't really been on too many of these,
00:50but I've obviously been following them.
00:52I'm also aware from my own area, the London Borough of Richmond,
00:56I've never seen so many barbershops open in the 46 years I've lived on this borough.
01:01In fact, I think we've got more barbershops now than coffee shops.
01:05At least when I drive past the coffee shops, I see people in them.
01:08When I drive past barbershops, predominantly they're empty.
01:13I think what a number of these shops, and not all of them,
01:15it's a bit like going into a laundrette.
01:17You take your dirty money in, you put it through the washer,
01:21and it comes out clean through what apparently is deemed as a legitimate business.
01:26And I'm sure this runs into hundreds of millions of pounds of money laundering.
01:32I mean, it is extraordinary to see just how prolific
01:36these sorts of presumed money laundering operations have become.
01:41Why is it, if the police are sort of onto this,
01:44or sort of if they're at least going after it now,
01:47why is it that they've been allowed to proliferate quite so prodigiously?
01:52It's because Britain is lawless.
01:54We have basically sleepwalked into a state of anarchy.
01:59There are no police officers to police.
02:02Yesterday, you rightly covered the alleged 13,000 new police officers,
02:07where they're not new police officers.
02:095,000 are special constables that work for free, four hours a week.
02:145,000 are PCSOs. We're getting rid of them.
02:16And 3,000 police officers being redeployed.
02:20So these criminals know that the police cannot cope,
02:24and they're taking advantage of it.
02:25And many gangs actually fly into the country,
02:28as Tamara Eckerton and Frank Lampard found out to their cost,
02:31and they lost over £26 to £30 million in four days.
02:36The gang came in, and they were out.
02:38Norman, as well, I don't understand how this happens to begin with,
02:40in terms of being able to open up a shop.
02:43Presumably, you have to demonstrate your finances in one way or another,
02:47your address or your personal information and everything else
02:51and how you're going to run the business or whatever.
02:53There must be, you know, the council must have to take this stuff.
02:55The HMRC must have to take this stuff.
02:57And yet, still, they're able to set up and proliferate.
03:00I don't quite understand where the gaps are here.
03:04Well, they probably send people over, or people are in Britain,
03:07that are law-abiding members that are public,
03:10part of their families or known as their gang,
03:12so they keep quite clean.
03:14They've got a clear record.
03:16And then, of course, they're funded.
03:18And if anybody asks any questions,
03:20they say their family are setting them up in business.
03:23And before you know it, not all of them,
03:25but, sadly, too many, including nail bars as well
03:28and even these car washes,
03:30are actually criminal gangs,
03:32fleecing, not necessarily fleecing anyone,
03:34but what they do is they don't charge too much
03:37and you think that's a good result.
03:38But behind the scenes,
03:39hundreds of thousands of dirty money is being cleaned
03:42and put back into the system,
03:44often to go towards drugs and other criminality.
03:47Oh, it's lovely.
03:47This is happening on all of our high streets, really, isn't it?