Two shops have been forced to shut after raids found more than £14,000 worth of banned tobacco and vapes. Newport Council has secured three-month closure orders for Famous Store in the city centre and Blue Fanta in Beechwood.
The trading standards team seized £11,750 worth of illicit tobacco on October 20 from Famous Store in Commercial Street. They returned on November 23 and discovered another £2,200 worth on the premises.
The next day Cwmbran Magistrates' Court ordered the business to close for three months. Council officers seized £1,200 in cash under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
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Trading standards also raided Blue Fanta in Chepstow Road on November 29 and found £750 worth of non-compliant vape products. The following day the same court imposed a three-month closure order on the shop.
It comes after four other shops in Newport were ordered to shut for three months from August following a previous crackdown on illegal tobacco. The businesses, which spanned half a mile along a single thoroughfare, were Food Store at 155 Commercial Road, Maleek at 61 Commercial Road, Jacobs at 61 Commercial Street, and Superstore at 141 Commercial Street.
And earlier this year 12 other shops in the city were handed three-month closure orders for involvement in the same illicit trade including four businesses in Commercial Road. The council believes the closures so far this year will prevent illegal tobacco sales worth more than £500,000.
A BBC investigation from 2012 found that illegal tobacco can contain eight times as much lead as legal brands and "abnormally high levels of cancer-causing chemicals". Last year more than three million illicit cigarettes were confiscated across Wales.
The Welsh Government says there is evidence of the market "feeding" other areas of crime including gangs, drugs, and human trafficking. A report from HMRC estimates that the trade costs the UK taxpayer more than £2bn in lost revenues each year.
Newport Council says there is a "higher prevalence" of illegal tobacco in deprived communities. Popular types include:
- ‘Cheap whites’, which are mass-produced in one country and smuggled into another;
- Cheap genuine tobacco smuggled into the UK with no duty paid (packages often display foreign languages and a lack of health warnings);
- Cigarettes sold individually instead of in packets;
- Counterfeits or fakes, which look like well-known brands but are made illegally.
The Welsh Government recently launched training for all police forces across Wales to disrupt the industry. It has set up the No Ifs, No Butts website to allow people to report information on the market. You can read more Newport stories here.
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