Shop in Sutton Bridge shut in illegal cigarettes crackdown

Police have forced a shop to shut in an operation to crack down on the sales of illegal cigarettes and vapes.

Sutton Bridge Market will now be closed for the next three months following an operation on Tuesday, September 17 involving South Holland Police and Lincolnshire Trading Standards. Two shops in Spalding were closed as part of the same operation.

Sgt Callum Corder from South Holland’s Neighbourhood Policing Team confirmed that there was a planned operation to target individuals putting our local communities at risk by selling counterfeit items.

He said, “Our community has expressed concerns about the products being sold at these premises, and to address the problem we have been collaborating with multiple agencies in the background, to gather the relevant evidence to achieve these closure orders granted by the court this week.

“My team will act robustly with other agencies to disrupt this criminality in line with the current South Holland Policing plan and priorities”.

The closure order will remain in place until midnight on December 17.

The order prohibits anyone from remaining on or entering the property with a few exceptions to allow maintenance.

And if anyone who breaks the order is liable for arrest and could receive up to 51 weeks in prison, or a fine, or both.

Andy Wright, Principal Trading Standards Officer said, “This is the latest round of shop closures in the South Holland area. Sellers of these goods are extremely persistent. My officers are currently conducting separate investigations into the criminal offences that were the subject of these Closure Orders.

“The sale of these goods undermines the interests of law-abiding retailers who do not compete on a level playing field. Premises selling counterfeit good commonly employ people with no legal right to work in the UK, that was seemingly the case in at least one of the premises closed.

“Often it is found that people working in these shops have been trafficked and dragged into criminality by those focused on profit making. The people who are driving these sorts of schemes are often not in the shops themselves. The people within the shops are quite often victims in their own right. They can be vulnerable and need to be supported and helped, which is why we take the action that we do.

“Of course, these businesses do not pay tax on the cigarettes they sell, each packet of illegal cigarettes sold costs the Treasury around £8 in lost revenue, in the broadest sense everyone who makes a tax contribution pays for that shortfall.

“The availability of cheap counterfeit cigarettes undermines smoking cessation objectives and there is clear evidence that illegal, child-appealing vapes are widely purchased by persons under the age of 18.

“Trading Standards will continue to work closely with Police in Spalding and across the county.”