They say a dog can be your best friend and that’s certainly the case when you are trading standards officers on the hunt for illegal tobacco products.
This is Cooper, a specially-trained dog who has been helping Swansea Trading Standards to unearth hiding places for counterfeit and illicit tobacco.
In this particular operation officers searched five premises and illegal tobacco and vapes were found in four of them with three arrests made.
David Hopkins, Swansea Council’s joint deputy leader and Cabinet Member for Corporate Services and Performance, said: “Cooper has a real nose for finding illegal tobacco. Some of the premises our teams visited had sophisticated hiding places with products hidden under floorboards, in hidden shop-counter drawers and under the stairs.
“What Cooper’s expertise shows is that when it comes to tracking down illegal tobacco products, there is no hiding place.”
Cllr Hopkins said one of the council’s top commitments is to protect residents from harm. Counterfeit tobacco does not go through the same manufacturing controls as legal tobacco and is often made using additional harmful ingredients.
Officers are now calling on the public to provide information if they think a shop could be selling illegal tobacco – especially to people under the age of 18.
Rhys Harries, Trading Standards Team Leader in Swansea Council, said: “Last year we confiscated large quantities of counterfeit tobacco and cigarettes from a number of local shops in Swansea, including tens of thousands of cigarettes and 220kg of rolling tobacco.
“While we accept that some of our residents are smokers we want to ensure measures that have been put in place by government to reduce uptake of smoking are not undermined by the availability counterfeit tobacco or cigarettes.”
“The sale of disposable vapes is one of the latest trends in the UK and we are trying to prevent the illegal vapes and appeal to anyone to provide us information on where they know where children are purchasing them locally.”
