{"id":170590,"date":"2025-06-09T15:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T15:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170590\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T15:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T15:38:12","slug":"birmingham-shop-raid-finds-battered-back-alley-van-with-1-million-illicit-cigarettes-haul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170590\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham shop raid finds battered back-alley van with 1 million illicit cigarettes haul"},"content":{"rendered":"

A BMW 3 Series was also smashed in by officers in search of counterfeit and illegal tobacco and vapes this morning, June 9<\/p>\n

A Birmingham convenience store was found to have a van full of illicit cigarettes worth \u00a3500,000 during a police raid this morning, June 9.<\/p>\n

The Erdington<\/a> High Street shop was one of two premises raided by Trading Standards officers and West Midlands Police<\/a> on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

The action saw multiple cars seized, including a battered Transit van in the back-alley behind the shop found to have a whopping 1 million cigarettes worth \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n

BirminghamLive also watched as officers smashed their way into a BMW 3 series outside the shop which resulted in more illicit tobacco being seized.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong>Founder of Birmingham movement attracting hundreds each week lives with past ‘every day’<\/a><\/p>\n

Officers from the police, council and immigration led two intel-based raids on Erdington stores a part of Operation Fearless and Operation Cloud, the latter of which is run by Trading Standards.<\/p>\n

A total of \u00a3750,000 of illegal and counterfeit tobacco, vapes and cigarettes were seized across two shops in Erdington High Street, with residents telling us that “many more” needed targeting.<\/p>\n

The first shop saw \u00a3500,000 worth of counterfeit cigarettes, tobacco and vapes seized and the second saw \u00a3250,000 snared.<\/p>\n

At around 10am on Monday morning BirminghamLive joined half a dozen trading standards officers, two immigration officers, and around seven West Midlands Police<\/a> officers at the first premises.<\/p>\n

The convenience store sold an array of snacks, soft drink cans and had a huge wall of vapes behind the till.<\/p>\n

West Midlands Police Operation Fearless in action in the centre of Erdington – working with Trading Standards and Immigration Enforcement. Pictured: Mohammed Tariq of Birmingham Trading Standards with a large haul of counterfeit cigarettes being stored in a van behind a shop.<\/p>\n

Scores of vapes, most of which were illegal as they were single-use, were pulled off the shelves by Trading Standards for being stronger than the law allows.<\/p>\n

The legal strength for vapes is 600 puffs, Trading Standards told us, but packs seized from the first shop were as strong as 15,000 puffs.<\/p>\n

Mohammed Tariq, lead officer for Trading Standards who goes as Tariq, explained: “We are ripping the place to shreds, the community is fed up.<\/p>\n

“It has been a fantastic result.”<\/p>\n

Within minutes, officers are lifting the ceiling and moving plywood in the store rooms behind the till – nothing was found while we were there.<\/p>\n

Soon the focus of action centres on a battered transit van, parked in the back alley behind the shop.<\/p>\n

The vehicle turned out to contain a huge amount of counterfeit cigarettes.<\/p>\n

West Midlands Police Operation Fearless in action in the centre of Erdington – working with Trading Standards and Immigration Enforcement. Pictured: Illegal vapes about to be confiscated.(Image: Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n

Tariq told us: “We’ve seized 1 million cigarettes from the back of this van with an estimated street value of \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n

“We target shops and organised crime groups involved in selling illicit vapes and cigarettes.”<\/p>\n

When asked how they know which shops to target, Tariq explained that the raids are all intel based, meaning they knew exactly where to find the van.<\/p>\n

He said that the production of illegal and counterfeit vapes are often linked to organised criminal groups.<\/p>\n

West Midlands Police Operation Fearless in action in the centre of Erdington – working with Trading Standards and Immigration Enforcement.(Image: Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n

Operation Fearless officers told us how in previous weeks they had raided an illegal tobacco factory operation from Birmingham’s Southside district – the produce of which will often end up on the shelve in 24-hour stores in Erdington and neighbourhoods across the city.<\/p>\n

A raid of a second shop around the corner, which had a fruit stall ‘front’, saw \u00a3250,000 worth of vapes and tobacco taken by Trading Standards.<\/p>\n

A West Midlands Police spokesperson said following the raid that Trading Standards\u2019 latest estimate of the value of goods seized on Monday is \u00a3750,000.<\/p>\n

A West Midlands Police investigation into the businesses is ongoing.<\/p>\n

Fearless officers also caught and arrested a suspected shop thief following a short chase on the High Street.<\/p>\n

Det Insp Tom Lyons, from Operation Fearless, said: \u201cOperation Fearless made a commitment that we would work partners to disrupt the supply of illegal goods in Erdington, and today we\u2019ve been doing exactly that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe items seized today can be dangerous, and the profits made by those involved in their supply can bring further harm to communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntelligence from the community is really valuable, and we would urge anyone with information about goods like these to get in touch with us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A BMW 3 Series was also smashed in by officers in search of counterfeit and illegal tobacco and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,22048,4884,16,15,7830],"class_list":{"0":"post-170590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-erdington","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-west-midlands-police"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114654157905959551","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}