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More than £140,000 worth of goods seized from Oxford Street American candy store

Home> News

Updated 07:55 3 Mar 2023 GMTPublished 07:36 3 Mar 2023 GMT

More than £140,000 worth of goods seized from Oxford Street American candy store

Police seized vapes and fake designer products from the stores.

Ali Condon

Ali Condon

Police have seized more more than £140,000 worth of goods from the 'American' candy stores and souvenir shops on Oxford Street.

The sweet and souvenir shops that also tend to sell sunglasses, vapes, phone accessories have been dominating London's shopping high street.

There are currently 29 of these candy and souvenir shops dotted up and down Oxford street where flagship shops like HMV and Forever 21 once stood.

Jeffrey Blackler / Alamy Stock Photo
Jeffrey Blackler / Alamy Stock Photo

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The vast number of them had started to raise suspicion among officials and members of the public, since more and more seem to appear, but customers are hardly ever seen going inside.

It wasn't long before Westminster City Council launched an investigation in to the shops, and police raids began.

Recent crackdowns by Westminster Council Trading Standards and Met Police have found that many of the products on sale are either fake of illegal.

In this latest raid, vapes that contain more than the legal amount of nicotine, and fake Apple and Gucci products were among the products seized.

In one shop, police found 3,000 illegal vapes with excessive nicotine that they believe had been snuck into the UK through customs.

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In another, they seized £96,000 worth of fake clothing, travel adaptors, air-pods, sunglasses, power banks, and phone covers.

Over £140,000 worth of goods were seized.
Westminster City Council

At some stores, customers claimed that they were seriously overcharged for products.

For example, one customer claimed to the council that they had paid £25 for a vape, only to find that their bank had been charged £100.

Martin Tuohy, a council trading standards manager told the BBC that most of these illegal products were likely snuck through UK customs and kept in hubs in Manchester and London before they were distributed in shops across the city.

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Westminster City Council's Adam Hug noted that the council was currently dealing with 'a sophisticated and determined rack that exploits UK legal loopholes to trade from shop lets', adding that the council were also in the process of chasing £9m in unpaid business rates through the courts.

Among the US candy products and London memorabilia are illegal and counterfeit items.
Eleventh Hour Photography / Alamy Stock Photo

The council claimed that, in the last 15 months, the total amount of fake or illegal goods seized in Oxford Street's US-themed candy stores amounts to over £1 million.

In a raid just last June, officials seized over £100,000 worth of counterfeit or illegal goods.

Adam Hug called out landlords at the time for 'turning a blind eye' to the subletting of their properties to businesses that aren't 'commercially viable' and are 'swindling their customers' and 'cheating the UK taxpayer'.

Featured Image Credit: RichardBaker / Alamy Stock Photo/Westminster City Council

Topics: UK News, News, London

Ali Condon
Ali Condon

Ali is a journalist for LADbible Group, writing on all things film, music, and entertainment across Tyla, LADbible and UNILAD. You can contact Ali at [email protected].

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@alicondon

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