More shop and barber raids to come, says inspector

A police inspector in charge of an operation investigating high street businesses acting as fronts for criminal activity has said there are more raids to come.

Raids in Shrewsbury, Hereford and Worcester, were amongst 265 carried out across England and Wales as part of a crackdown on businesses - often Turkish-style barbers, vape shops and mini-marts - suspected of being fronts for international crime gangs.

Det Insp Daniel Fenn of West Mercia Police said from the 33 warrants issued, four arrests for money laundering and immigration offences were made.

He told BBC Radio Shropshire: "You shouldn't be worried about going into a barber shop because some of them are being run legally."

"However, the signs to look out for are if a shop is always closed, are they being run at odd times, do you see quite a lot of activity during the night time hours, do they have very few customers but lots of workers in the shop, for example?"

Small shops, barbers and vape stores are suspected of being fronts for illegal activity like human trafficking and money laundering as part of the National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation, known as Operation Machinize.

The Shrewsbury raid was on a barber shop in the centre of town, one of five close together which were also targeted in the operation.

West Mercia Police arrested one man for money laundering offences in relation to a raid on a barber shop in Worcester, while three others were arrested in Hereford and Worcester for immigration offences.

Det Insp Fenn said police had seen many barber shops opening across the country, both in urban and rural areas.

"That is not to say that all of them are run illegally but obviously with more and more popping up it raises questions," he said.

He said while the raids resulted in organised crime being uncovered, police had to act quickly as offenders moved on.

"We found the ones we did [raid] across the West Mercia area were linked, they are either linked through the same directorship or linked to other shops such as sweet shops or vape shops, so there are a wide span of businesses linked to either one person or intrinsically linked across a number of pieces."

From the raids in Shropshire, West Mercia Police recovered £500,000 in illegal assets, linked to tobacco, illicit vapes and large amounts of cash stored in ways that were "indicative to money laundering."

Det Insp Fenn said the money would now go back into West Mercia Police and the Home Office to continue to tackle organised crime across the country.

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