WalesOnline joined trading standards officers as they conducted raids on premises in Swansea suspected of selling black market cigarettes and vapes
A Swansea trading standards officer confronts a shop worker(Image: walesonline)
The man registered as the owner of the Bob Marley vape shop has been in prison since July after being caught with £100,000 worth of black market cigarettes and vapes. But the store in Swansea stayed open and trading standards officers returned this week to raid it again, finding bags stuffed with illicit products and shutting down the premises.
It was part of a Swansea council operation this week to crack down on vape shops suspected of targeting children with dangerous goods. Trading standards, police officers and immigration officers visited 14 businesses and issued closure orders against nine of them, as well as making ten arrests. Drugs were seized from multiple shops, or from “stash” vehicles linked to them.
WalesOnline joined the raid of Bob Marley Vapes and a few other stores in St Helen’s Road — a street where our undercover reporter was recently sold illegal items at all but one of the six vape shops.
An operation to crackdown on illegal nicotine products involving police, trading standards officers and UK Government officers(Image: walesonline)
We begin our ride-along at a briefing where dozens of council and police officers squeezed into a Guildhall office as the lead trading standards officer Rhys Harries explains the objectives. He starts with an update on the previous day of the operation — two men have just been taken into custody after coming into the council HQ asking for the keys to a shop that had been shut down for illegal trading. “We didn’t know who the owners were until they turned up,” says Mr Harries.
The registered owner of the Bob Marley shop, 23-year-old Peshawa Zada, has been jailed for a year and ten months, but since then the council has made test purchases and gathered intelligence that criminal activity is ongoing.
Bob Marley Vapes in Swansea(Image: walesonline)
“With a lot of these shops, you put someone inside and the shop continues to operate,” says Mr Harries. “That’s why there’s going to be a slight change in tack. We’ve previously gone in and seized products and prosecuted individuals, and we’re still doing that, but we’re also going to be issuing closure orders.
“That means we can close properties for up to 48 hours and then make an application at the court to close them for up to three months.”
Much of the focus will be on targeting those further up the chain, says Mr Harries, who urges his team to hunt for phones, paperwork and anything else that can help identify senior figures.
The raid of Bob Marley Vapes in St Helen’s Road, Swansea(Image: walesonline)
The first shop on the itinerary is Bob Marley Vapes, where shelves are sparsely stocked and a lone worker stands behind the counter. He shows no emotion as the raid gets underway.
Previous searches of the shop found a remote-controlled concealment in the ceiling of a backroom, but there’s nothing up there on this occasion, and rifling through hides under floorboards turns up nothing. Sitting in a backyard overgrown with weeds is a shed where officers previously found dogs who were seized due to welfare concerns, but this is now empty.
Trading standards officer Rhys Harries looks for illicit products(Image: walesonline)
Upstairs are two mostly bare rooms where someone appears to be living. In one there is a mattress on the floor and in the other a sofa. A half-eaten pack of cupcakes, a filled ashtray and an empty Red Bull can are scattered on the floor.
Eventually, in what Mr Harries describes as “the only room we’ve never found anything in before”, officers discover two rucksacks crammed with illegal disposable vapes, hidden among a clutter of bedframe parts. They find more banned vapes in a Tesco bag in a cupboard.
Illegal vapes were stored in a back room area of Bob Marley Vapes(Image: walesonline)
On the man behind the counter they find a phone that has been “wiped clean”, with no sim card, then further searches reveal two more phones. “How many phones you got?” asks an incredulous police officer.
The worker appears unable to answer questions due to a language barrier, though when he is cuffed and led into a police van he protests: “I am working.”
An operation to crackdown on illegal nicotine products involving police, trading standards officers and UK Government officers(Image: walesonline)
We catch up with Home Office immigration officers, who have spoken to various workers from shops on St Helens’ Road. “All came here illegally but successfully claimed asylum, so they have permission to work,” says one officer. “One man claimed asylum from Iran and told us he’s just been on holiday to Iran. I’m not sure how that works.”
At one shop in the neighbourhood, two young men start running away when they see officers approaching but then appear to change their mind and run back into the shop. After long searches of the men and the premises, no action is taken.
The raids create a hubbub on the street as locals chatter in groups. A few men laugh as they recognise us from footage we shared recently on the WalesOnline TikTok showing our undercover vape buys. We ask one man if he would like to be interviewed about Swansea’s issues with illegal trading, but he replies with a smile: “If I talk are you gonna save my life?”
The raid of Bob Marley Vapes in Swansea(Image: walesonline)
With the help of tobacco sniffer dogs at some premises, officers shut three shops in St Helen’s Road — Asia Vapes, Kubus Vapes and Bob Marley Vapes — and arrest six workers.
The shops closed down on other days of the operation are World of Vapes in Pontarddulais, Crystal Vapes in Gorseinon, Morriston Mini Market, Monsoon Vapes in Morriston, and Snoop Vapes and Bob CBD Vapes, both in the city centre.
In all the team seized 971 packs of cigarettes with a £4,855 counterfeit value and a £15,000 retail value; 970 packets of hand-rolling tobacco with a £19,500 counterfeit value and £39,000 retail value; and 2,292 vapes valued at £23,000.
They also found five “stash cars” for black market goods, including one for the Class B drug cannabis. In one shop, illegal cannabis vapes containing the active ingredient THC were found.
A cupboard storing illegal goods at Bob Marley Vapes(Image: walesonline)
Ten people were arrested on suspicion of fraudulent trading and breaching the Trademarks Act. One was charged with possessing cannabis in connection to a seizure at Asia Vapes.
The initial closure orders have already been extended to three months for two shops — World of Vapes and Kubus — while applications for similar orders for the other businesses will be heard in court next week.
Police Inspector Andrew Hedley said: “Counterfeit tobacco and vapes are not only illegal, but they are incredibly dangerous for those who use them. Counterfeit cigarettes are unregulated, dangerous and fund serious organised crime. The vapes seized do not comply with UK safety standards and can pose a risk to consumers’ health.
“These businesses were all given warnings to stop selling these items but disregarded them. They will now face prosecution for various offences as a result.”
An operation to crackdown on illegal nicotine products involving police, trading standards officers and UK Government officers(Image: walesonline)
Andrew Williams, the council’s cabinet member for corporate services, said: “Our trading standards team has made this issue a priority and has been able to gather large amounts of intelligence in terms of which shops in the city have previously been selling illegal goods to consumers, including children.
“The latest operation has been very successful in our efforts to disrupt this type of trade and hopefully it will send out a very strong message to other businesses in the city — that they have a duty to ensure they are trading legally and not putting consumers at risk.”
WalesOnline’s previous visit to St Helen’s Road uncovered the sale of goods ranging from disposable vapes — which were banned in June — to super-cheap packets of foreign cigarettes with no clear health warning. You can see what happened when we confronted shopkeepers here.
If you know of a story we should be investigating, email us at conor.gogarty@walesonline.co.uk
