Bournemouth, Crime | Posted on July 31st, 2024 | return to news
Bournemouth Council seizes over £200k of illicit tobacco
Illegal tobacco, cigarettes and vapes worth £208,000 have been seized by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council this year.
An operation lead by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council has resulted in a record seizure of illegal hand rolling tobacco, cigarettes, and vapes.
Working closely with HM Revenue and Customs and Dorset Police, BCP’s Trading Standards Team seized just under 32kg of illegal rolling tobacco, 145,740 cigarettes, over 7,600 unregulated vapes and over 10kg of illicit shisha with a combined street value of around £208,000 from 12 off licences in the area.
The first two targeted raids took place across two days in March at eight premises in Bournemouth town centre, Wallisdown and Winton. In May, two more shops in the town centre were targeted.
Earlier this month, the focus turned to Boscombe, where over 6kg of hand rolling tobacco, 19,160 cigarettes and 1,170 vapes were seized at three off licences with the help of a sniffer dog.
Cllr Kieron Wilson, portfolio holder for housing and regulatory services at BCP Council, said: “This is a big statement on how seriously the Council, HM Revenue and Customs and Dorset Police take this issue.
“We’ll continue to carry out visits to premises across our community and come down hard on those breaking the law, especially with the health and safety risks that items such as these pose, particularly to the younger members of our society.
Sophie Sajic, head of public protection at BCP Council, said: “The safety of the public is our primary focus, and we continue to work hard to remove illegal products from sale across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.
“Disposable vapes are sold with strict guidelines on the quantities of e-liquid and nicotine they contain and must have the correct safety information.
“Aside to this, cigarettes must also self-extinguish when they are left to lower the risks of accidental house fires, and illegal products do not have any of this, which could have devastating consequences.
“This latest seizure not only highlights the vast quantities of illegal tobacco, cigarettes and vapes coming into our communities for sale, but also the sophisticated lengths individuals are taking to conceal them and avoid detection.
“Over the past few months, we’ve uncovered hidden storage rooms disguised as walls and shelves on shop floors secured by electro-magnets, where in some cases, they have been laced with coffee grounds and onions in a bid to confuse and outsmart tobacco detection dogs when a premises is searched.
“Thanks to the great work of our respective teams and partners, we are now able to take positive action to investigate the offending premises further with a view to initiating prosecutions or closing them completely.”
Over the past 12 months, BCP’s Trading Standards Team have removed a total of 16,215 illegal vapes, 245,560 cigarettes and over 67kg of hand rolling tobacco from sale across the three towns, worth a total of £395,673.
Further targeted operations are now planned at premises across the area over the coming months.
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