Child refugees have been put to work on Manchester's infamous 'Counterfeit Street' having been recruited by criminals, police revealed as another five shops were raided and shut in the notorious hooky gear hotspot.
In a sinister development, it was revealed some of the 33 organised crime gangs linked to the district have groomed children - who came to the country as asylum seekers - and put them to work in shops and in county lines drugs enterprises.
The vulnerable youngsters have been placed in a dangerous environment, in which gangs work with each other to supply fake clothing, perfume and illicit prescription drugs - but have also turned on each other triggering violence. Operation Vulcan - launched in late October by GMP to stamp out hooky businesses on Bury New Road near the city centre - is uncovering back the sheer depth of the criminality associated with them.
READ MORE: The face of Manchester's notorious crime street is changing
Detective Superintendent Neil Blackwood, leading Operation Vulcan, told the Manchester Evening News: "Greater Manchester Police has current, ongoing investigations regarding children and young people who have travelled unaccompanied and recently arrived in this country. These children have then been housed in a social care setting [although typically not a hotel].
"Some of these children are then falling prey to criminal gangs, who are using a county lines model to exploit them. Modern slavery legislation is being used across GMP to tackle such exploitation by older criminals targeting this type of victim."
Asked what kind of work the children were doing, he said: "From what we are seeing - and from the intelligence GMP receives - the children and young people are largely being put to 'work' managing the Class C drugs supply. This is classic county line MO with young people being exploited and groomed by older criminals.
"In this case, we are seeing young people and children exploited by older criminals who have the same background - i.e. many are from the same country of origin - and so they have commonality; or there is some threat against the families back in their home country."
Once here, children and their parents are often in debt to criminals.
DS Blackwood added: "Many of the children have travelled considerable distances and, by all accounts, independently of responsible adults. A 12, 13 or 14-year-old making their own way to the UK from Libya, for example, is highly unlikely and so we assume they have support that requires an eventual payment."
He confimed that GMP currently had 'live investigations' into children who had ended up in Cheetham Hill.
Police intelligence indicates the network of hotels used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers has been targeted by organised criminals.
"Large numbers go missing en masse - 20 to 30 Afghans in one go, [unaccompanied] kids too," he added.
"Where are they going? They are brought to Cheetham Hill, scooped up by criminal enterprises and put to work. Children are taken into county lines, put to work by their own nationality selling drugs. They have come to our attention within weeks of arriving in the UK."
The district in which the counterfeiters and criminals have enterprises takes in Strangeways, half a mile from the city, but also stretches into Cheetham Hill and parts of bordering Salford with back alleys of warehouses, industrial units, and buildings converted into warrens of multiple shops.
Since late autumn, police have been relentlessly cracking down on the illegal trade. From a starting point of more than 200 counterfeit shops around Great Ducie Street and Bury New Road, police believe the number remaining is now 'in the low tens'. An estimated £40m-worth of fake goods have been seized.
"Had you been here three or four months ago there would have been hundreds of people already this morning looking for those shops,” said DS Blackwood. "They’re not here anymore."
Against the backdrop of early commuters bustling along the A56 towards the city centre at 7.30am today (Wednesday, February 22), GMP vans burst onto Harris Street, a side street off Bury New Road. The road is taped off and a team of more than a dozen specialist officers immediately get to work.
Sparks fly into the street as shutter after shutter is sawn, before the doors are barged down and officers check inside. Immigration officers are on standby as police check for anyone stuck inside the building, but there is no one on the other side of the shutters.
The message around Operation Vulcan is clearly getting through. Inside one Harris Street shop, innocuous-looking boxes are stacked up against walls with empty clothes rails and hangers, with stock moved away from the racks.
Detective Chief Inspector Jen Kelly said: "We have intelligence to suggest they want to get rid of their stock, out of their shops, before Vulcan comes. They know we’re not going away, they know we’re here relentlessly pursuing them, so they think that they can remove the goods and sell them online for instance.
"But we’re going to follow them wherever they go. We’ve got a plan around the online space, and as you can see by what we’ve done today, we’ll get there before they do."
Unmarked boxes conceal items which can appear genuine, with the products potentially worth tens of thousands of pounds on the 'grey market'. DCI Kelly opens one box to reveal an item being sold as 'Apple AirPods'.
The items inside the boxes could be worth tens of thousands of pounds on the 'grey market'. Next door, organised criminals have begun moving stock away, but there are still some clothes on the racks.
Some of the shops raided were still fully stocked as police arrived. Fragrances sold inside 'Boss' and 'YSL' boxes are in a display counter, in front of 'Balenciaga' and 'Prada' handbags.
Coats line the walls with 'Canada Goose' and 'Stone Island' badges sewn on. Police say many of the clothes sold are imported to the UK with no branding, before exploited factory workers 'earning £20 a day' stick fake badges onto the items.
As officers break their way into one of the shops, they’re greeted by counterfeit England and Manchester United football shirts in the doorway. At the front of another is a baseball bat, one of a number of items GMP have found to be used as weapons by the criminals who run the shops.
"This would have been a thriving counterfeit goods network," said DS Blackwood. "We've already seen accounts this morning that say these shops were earning in the region of £60,000 over a couple of months. That's actually quite low for around here."
DS Blackwood believes the fully-stocked shop has items that would sell for more than half a million pounds in total - though their real value is considerably less.
He said: "We count every single item, by brand, and put it into our records so we know exactly what we’re looking at. The 'Stone Island' coat in here, that’s probably retailing for £200 or £300 - if it were real, you’d be talking £800, £900 or £1,000."
Operation Vulcan has been a relentless exercise for GMP, alongside Manchester council. As with so many other shops raided in recent months, the items seized on Harris Street will be stored in a secure location, before being forfeited in court and recycled.
The properties will be 'tinned up', DS Blackwood says, with access details left so the landlords can get in touch. He added: "If a landlord wants to come to us and start engaging about how these buildings might be reused for a legitimate purpose, we’re absolutely fine with that."
The Strangeways area is believed to be the country’s centre for counterfeit goods. It sits at a 'key gateway' to the city, close to the AO Arena and the new Manchester College campus.
The team behind Operation Vulcan are pleased with the results so far - with the horrors of catcalling and street drug dealing, once rife in the area, drastically cut down. They are confident 'Counterfeit Street' won't be replicated elsewhere, while they are prepared to follow illicit trade wherever it moves on.
DCI Kelly said: "In the past, police would raid a shop, clear it out and then they would refill it or move to another shop in the area. We’re not seeing that anymore, we’re closing shops with our partners for the long term."
Operation Vulcan could change the face of Strangeways forever, and DS Blackwood believes there is 'opportunity for how this area is repurposed' in the future - but he knows the work isn't over. "They’re very, very organised," he added.
"It might look chaotic, but they're organised, history would tell us if we take our foot off the gas for one minute they’ll set up shop somewhere else."
A Home Office spokesperson said: "We take the safety and welfare of those in our care extremely seriously, particularly those who are at risk of exploitation. Local authorities are responsible for all looked-after children in their area and have a statutory duty to protect and safeguard children.
"Where adult asylum seekers are found to be involved in criminal activity they will face the full force of the law and open themselves up to potential deportation out of the country with their asylum claims rejected."
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