£500k worth of illegal tobacco seized in Walsall

£500,000 Worth of Illegal Tobacco Seized in Walsall Operation

A huge amount of tobacco, illegal cigarettes, counterfeit duty stamps and counterfeit tobacco labelling with a retail value of approximately £500,000 was seized from a storage facility in Walsall on Friday 7 March as part of a crackdown on the illicit tobacco trade.

The seizure was undertaken as part of Operation Shadow, which aims to disrupt the wholesale supply of illicit tobacco as well as retail.

Walsall Council Trading Standards, in partnership with West Midlands Police and a specialist search dog team, searched one storage facility. Sniffer dogs Griff, Cooper and Bran—trained by international consultant Stu Phillips—assisted the Trading Standards team. Stu has trained multiple award-winning search dogs, and two of his previous tobacco dogs remain the only tobacco detection dogs in the world to be awarded medals by the Royal Family.

All three dogs indicated that there was tobacco being stored in the unit. Trading Standards then obtained the key for the unit, which revealed:

• 23 bin liners containing over 500kg of processed tobacco

• 1,000 packets of hand-rolling tobacco (HRT)

• 3,000 cigarettes

• Counterfeit duty stamps and packaging

These goods would have later been packaged at an illegal tobacco factory ready to be distributed across the country.

Councillor Garry Perry, Leader of Walsall Council, said:

“This is an incredibly huge seizure for our Trading Standards and Police colleagues, and with the help of sniffer dogs Griff, Bran and Cooper I commend them all for carrying out this operation.

Illegal tobacco has serious consequences for our community and health and carrying out these seizures help to stop these products from being packaged and supplied across the country. It is also linked to organised criminal activity including human trafficking, drugs and terrorism.

Our Trading Standards and Police teams take illicit tobacco very seriously and we will use every enforcement technique at our disposal to disrupt this type of activity from happening within our borough.”

Further investigations continue to clamp down on such illegal products.

About Stu Phillips K9

Stu Phillips is an internationally recognised detection dog instructor, trainer, and operational handler. He has trained multiple award-winning detection dogs across drugs, cash, tobacco, explosives, and specialist projects worldwide. Two of his tobacco detection dogs, Scamp and Yoyo, remain the only tobacco dogs in the world to have been awarded medals by the Royal Family for their outstanding contribution to law enforcement.

Through Stu Phillips K9, he provides operational support, specialist training, audits, and consultancy to police, customs, and government agencies across the UK and internationally.