Denbighshire County Council’s Trading Standards successfully seize large amounts of illegal cigarettes and vapes.

Following previous successful operations to crack down on the sale of illegal cigarettes and vapes, Denbighshire County Council’s trading standard officers along with Wagtail Detection dogs conducted several visits to premises across the County.

These premises were targeted after test purchase operations found them to be selling illegal, cigarettes, tobacco and vapes.

Out of the six visits conducted, five of them resulted in large sum of illicit products being seized. In total over 2000 cigarettes, six kilograms of tobacco and 70 illegal vapes were taken off the streets.

During the search these items were discovered concealed in a variety of ways. Illegal tobacco and cigarettes were found in purpose built hidden compartments that were secured by electromagnets and illegal vapes were concealed inside unopened crisp boxes.

Councillor Alan James, Lead Member for Local Development and Planning said:

“This is another example of the great work that our trading standards officers are doing to take illegal products such as these off the shelves. The items seized were counterfeit and carry serious safety and health issues to those people buying and using them.

The products have not been safety tested and the cigarettes pose a real fire safety risk as they do not have the safety burn ring. From a health point of view, the contents of the tobacco and vapes are unknown, and they could potentially have harmful levels of illegal chemicals far beyond the normal risks of genuine authorised tobacco products. Our residents play a vital role in identifying areas and persons of interest, which help our trading standard officers to investigate and get illegal tobacco, vapes and other products out of the community”.

Businesses can get in touch with Denbighshire’s Trading Standards Team for advice on illegal cigarette, tobacco and vaping products on Denbighshire’s website.

The Council are also advising residents who may have any information on the sale of illegal cigarettes, tobacco or vapes to contact Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111 or report it on the No Ifs No Butts website.