Illegal tobacco sales in city’s main shopping street worth over £2 million

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

A black market for illegal tobacco in Newport’s main shopping street is worth an estimated £2.1 million a year.

A trading standards operation focusing on Commercial Street led to arrests, seizures of contraband, and criminal charges for those allegedly involved, according to a Newport City Council report.

Across the city, the report reveals trading standards officers seized 667,400 cigarettes, 118 kg of tobacco, and 19,000 illegal vapes in the last financial year.

The value of those confiscated goods is estimated at £600,000, and officers also seized cash worth more than £16,000 from premises allegedly involved in selling the illegal products.

Photographs of the busts, shared by the city council with the Local Democracy Reporting Service, show huge quantities of cigarettes and tobacco pouches stacked in boxes, holdalls and bin bags.

In several cases, the products seized by the team carry warning labels written in other languages, or are of lesser-known brands.

A trading standards crackdown, dubbed Operation Osprey, focused on illegal tobacco sales in Commercial Street, one of the city’s main shopping areas.

The council report states the “value of criminality relating to illegal tobacco on Commercial Street was estimated to be in excess of £2.1 million annually”.

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Officers “established the network of illegal tobacco sellers” before carrying out seizures, and executed a warrant at a property in Ebenezer Terrace, where it was reported that “quantities of cannabis and cash were also found and seized”.

“Five shops selling illegal tobacco were subject to closure orders and three suspects were arrested and taken into custody,” the report states.

“The criminal investigation continued where the three defendants were charged with fraudulent trading under the Fraud Act 2006. All three defendants pleaded guilty.”

Around one in four retailers visited by Newport trading standards last year also failed test purchases of age-restricted items, according to the council report, which said 17 of 60 businesses “failed to comply and sold products such as vapes and alcohol to children”.