Police raid barbers and vape shops suspected of being fronts for crime gangs

Police officers smash through the back doors of a bright, modern barber shop in the market town of Shrewsbury.

Inside they immediately detain two men – who we are later told are Kurdish asylum seekers. Both men are later released.

It is the first of six raids that day where police seize thousands of pounds in cash and illicit vapes.

The officers are here with a warrant to search the premises because of suspected money laundering. They say their intelligence also suggests the shop is linked to sale of illicit cigarettes and vapes, illegal immigration and drug-dealing.

Det Insp Daniel Fenn, on his ninth raid of the week, says some barber shops such as this are claiming income of £100,000 to £150,000 a month. “They aren’t getting that amount of customers to warrant that amount of money.”

CCTV in other barbers that have been raided has shown they do not have many customers, so footage of this one will also be examined, DI Fenn says.

The raid in Shrewsbury was one of 265 carried out across England and Wales last month as part of a crackdown on High Street businesses – often Turkish-style barbers, vape shops and mini-marts – suspected of being fronts for international crime gangs.

Politicians and members of the public have raised concerns about many of these businesses which have boomed even while High Streets appear to be in decline. The average number of barbers per person in England and Wales has doubled in the past 10 years, according to commercial property analysts Green Street.

Now the National Crime Agency (NCA) says it has launched the crackdown, called Operation Machinize, in response to growing intelligence reports that some of these shops are being used for money laundering – where gangs falsely present the proceeds of criminal operations as if they were earnings from legitimate businesses handling large amounts of cash.

Despite these shops operating openly for years on High Streets and attracting widespread local suspicion, this is the first co-ordinated action of its kind by police, tax and immigration inspectors and Trading Standards officers. We were given exclusive access to dozens of raids carried out by Greater Manchester and West Mercia Police.

Det Insp Melanie Johnson, who led the operation for Greater Manchester Police, said her own local High Street had 10 barbers and a mini-mart, which was “not sustainable”.

“As a mum to young children, I want them to grow up feeling safe, in a community that isn’t derelict, a High Street that isn’t falling apart, and isn’t populated by criminality,” she said.

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.

“Members of the public are angry. They can see these fronts are there,” says Det Insp Fenn.
“The criminals feel they are hidden here. They think they can come to sleepy areas such as Shrewsbury and Telford and won’t be found.”

It looks like the two men detained here have been living in the rooms above the barbers – there are clothes, shoes and food scattered on the floor as we move from room to room. The flats are barely furnished, with just a mattress and blankets on the floor.

Det Insp Fenn says organised crime groups are different all over the country, but here he has been seeing familiar patterns of shops staffed with asylum seekers or illegal immigrants, many of the people in the barber shops being from Kurdish backgrounds.