Revealed: 500,000 illegal cigarettes seized in Wolverhampton
Nearly half a million illegal cigarettes have been seized in Wolverhampton in just two years, it has been revealed.
Trading standards officers from Wolverhampton council confiscated a total of 473,133 cigarettes between April 2014 and March this year.
Raids by officers also resulted in the seizure of 79.4kg of illegal hand rolling tobacco, 3kg of oral tobacco and 95 packets of oral tobacco.
It can also be revealed 360 blunt wraps, 314 packets of blunt and 400g of shisha have been taken off the streets.
Blunts are cigars while shisha is a tobacco mix commonly smoked in a hookah pipe.
All the products which were seized were considered by the council to be 'illicit', meaning either they are counterfeit or the required duty had not been paid.
Councillor Ian Angus, Labour councillor for Bushbury North and chair of the council's vibrant, sustainable city scrutiny panel, said: "These figures demonstrate the good work that is being undertaken by Wolverhampton Council to rid our streets of illegal, dangerous tobacco. The sale of illicit goods not only robs the public purse of much needed revenue but it poses a real risk to public health.
"Existing laws are inadequate to tackle fake tobacco sales and this is why we are lobbying Government to allow local authorities to licence tobacco in the same way as alcohol."
The new figures were released following a Freedom of Information request made to Wolverhampton council.
The authority said it did not have information on the estimated street value of the goods seized within the city.
In May, the Express & Star revealed that more than £3.7 million worth of illegal cigarettes and tobacco had been taken off the streets in the Black Country and Staffordshire during the past two years.
Trading standards teams have carried out hundreds of test purchases and raids at shops across the region in a bid to uncover illegal stock.
Sniffer dogs have also been drafted in to help find items hidden away in hard-to-find locations, including inside walls and even inside an oven.
In some areas there has been an increase in the number of products seized and destroyed during the two-year period with shopkeepers taken to court and fined for their involvement.
