LONDON: Eight men have been arrested after police seized more than 130,000 suspected illegal cigarettes.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officers seized the goods during a series of raids in Strangeways , Cheetham Hill and Bury here the other day.
The officers seized material in relation to suspected tax evasion including 137,600 cigarettes, 73 kilos of tobacco, counterfeit cash and four vehicles.
They recovered the items during searches of nine retail properties, one domestic address and a storage container.
Officers from Immigration Enforcement also arrested six men for immigration offences.
Counterfeit goods worth an estimated £2m were seized from 11 premises and 49,350 individual doses of unlicensed medicines were retrieved.
Greater Manchester Police seized two vans and issued several dispersal notices.
The huge operation involved investigations into a number of suspected offences including tax evasion, smuggling, immigration and counterfeiting.
Mike Parkinson, assistant director of Fraud Investigation Service for HMRC, said: “HMRC has significant criminal and civil powers to disrupt criminality and tackle tax evasion on many levels.
“Sharing intelligence on suspected criminal activity with other agencies and working together is key to our enforcement work.
“Combined with the powers of our partners we are able to take effective action to ensure nobody is acting above the law.”
Coun Nigel Murphy, executive member for neighbourhoods at Manchester council, said: “Counterfeiting is not a victimless crime and such goods are often poor quality or unsafe.
“Consumers are also completely unprotected with little chance of getting their money back and the illegal trade undermines and jeopardises legitimate traders.
“Operations such as this, working with partners at GMP and HMRC, are vital to get fake items off the street and I’d like to praise those involved.”
Rebekah Sutcliffe, Assistant Chief Constable for GMP, added: “The Strangeways area is one of the largest counterfeit goods suppliers in the UK and the sale of these products has a huge impact on local taxpayers and businesses, as well as potentially funding more serious and violent crime.”
