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Raids uncover £25k of illegal cigarettes and vapes

Alex McIntyre
BBC News, West Midlands
Stoke-on-Trent City Council Full plastic bags and a suitcase full of cigarette cartons and vapes on the ground. The bags have been labelled with yellow cards.Stoke-on-Trent City Council
Thousands of cigarettes and hundreds of vapes were seized in the raids

Illegal tobacco and vapes worth £25,000 have been seized in a series of raids in a city.

Officers from Stoke-on-Trent City Council's trading standards team and Staffordshire Police searched four sites in High Street, Tunstall, on 4 June.

About 20,000 cigarettes, 6.5kg of hand-rolling tobacco, 650 vapes and 22 tubs of shisha were recovered, a city council spokesperson said.

Councillor Amjid Wazir said illegal tobacco and vapes often exploited vulnerable workers and undermined legitimate businesses.

The raids were part of Operation Cece – a national trading standards and HM Revenue and Customs initiative aimed at tackling the supply of illegal tobacco.

That came after the introduction of the ban on single-use vapes on 1 June.

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