Croydon Council trading standards and HM Revenue and Customs teamed up with specialist detection dogs to track down and seize illegal tobacco worth over £300,000 from a Croydon storage unit.

More than 216,000 illegal cigarettes and 350 kilograms of hand-rolling tobacco were uncovered when officers swooped a self-storage unit in the north of the borough in the joint operation with Stuart Phillips K9 on Wednesday 1 December.

The crackdown was part of Operation CeCe, a national campaign which focuses on joint working between trading standards and HM Revenue and Customs.

The majority of the tobacco was non-duty paid and suspected to have been smuggled into the country. A proportion was believed to be counterfeits of popular brands, which are likely to contain harmful substances and may not self-extinguish.

The investigation remains ongoing and the seized products will now be fully assessed as part of the inquiry to determine the exact offences that have been committed.

Read more here at the Croydon Council news page: https://news.croydon.gov.uk/300k-of-illegal-cigarettes-seized-by-trading-standards-crackdown-in-croydon/