One million illegal cigarettes, with a street value of more than £200,000, have been seized in Wales as part of a major crackdown on the country’s illegal tobacco trade.
The milestone was hit by Welsh Trading Standards Teams taking part in Operation CeCe, an ongoing National Trading Standards initiative in partnership with Her Majesties Revenue & Customs (HMRC) to tackle illegal tobacco.
They say the haul seized during raids carried out across Wales, including Rhondda Cynon Taf, includes 1,039,046 cigarettes and 3,377.6 pouches of hand-rolling tobacco, with a total street value of £286,782.30 – money that would otherwise have been in the pockets of criminal gangs.
Louise Davies, Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s Director of Public Health, Protection and Community Services, said:
“I am delighted with the results of Operation CeCe, the result being one million cigarettes being taken off the streets.
“Many of the cigarettes seized would have ended up in the hands of children and young people in Wales’ poorest communities, which are targeted by criminals selling illegal tobacco.”
Helen Picton, Chair of Trading Standards Wales, said:
“The trade in illegal tobacco creates a cheap source for tobacco for children and young people. It also undermines all of the good work being done to stop people smoking and the illegal tobacco trade more often than not has strong links to criminal activity.
“We need to keep tobacco out of the hands of children. Cheap tobacco products make it easier for children to start smoking, as it is sold at pocket money prices by criminals who don’t care about age-restriction laws.”
Trading Standards Wales say that eight per cent of 15 and 16-year-olds in Wales still smoke on a regular basis – a figure that has not fallen since 2013. Around 6,000 children in Wales take up smoking every year and three out of four of those children will go on to be long-term smokers.
Smoking is an addiction that begins in childhood and a recent ASH Wales survey found that 76% of smokers in Wales tried their first cigarette before the age of 18.
Suzanne Cass, CEO of ASH Wales, said:
“For many children, buying their first pack of illegal cigarettes will be the start of a lifelong addiction that will destroy their health, lead them into poverty and eventually kill them.
“Stamping out this deadly trade is an essential part of reducing Wales’ smoking prevalence which currently stands at 18 per cent of the adult population and leads to more than 5,000 deaths every year.
“We welcome any action that is taken to remove illegal tobacco from our communities and hope that this will continue to form part of any strategy to address Wales’ health inequalities.”
Since the launch of the crackdown in January 2021 Trading Standards and HMRC have been gathering intelligence on criminal tobacco gangs and are planning more raids across Wales in the next few months.
