An American candy store on Oxford Street has had more than £55,000 worth of suspected illegal goods seized in a recent raid.
Trading Standards officers recovered 2,200 items, including fake designer mobile phone covers, a haul of vapes with twice the legal amount of nicotine, and sweets banned in the UK in an operation on Wednesday morning.
The raid comes as Westminster City council officials have stepped up the pressure on the US-themed sweet shops that have cropped up along Oxford Street, which it claims are using the stores for tax dodging.
Council leader Adam Hug said: “This significant haul from just one shop shows the scale of the problem we face.
“Suspected illegal goods continue to flood into the country and central London. As a council we do what we can making life difficult for unscrupulous traders through enforcement action and pressure on landlords
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He added: “On the wider stage we are also campaigning for changes to company registration to make it harder for dirty money to circulate in London.
“We are dealing with people who are quite prepared to peddle excessively strong vapes and banned sweets to children.
“But more trading standards raids are on the way in the coming weeks, so anyone who thinks they can drag down the reputation of Oxford Street with this tawdry trade can think again.”
The council’s crackdown on American candy and souvenir shops along the capital’s busiest shopping street has seen a raft of new retailers move into the empty units.
HMV reclaimed its former Oxford Street home in November last year, following recent store openings from Kurt Geiger and Steven Madden in September.
In October, Westminster City Council reported the number of American candy and souvenir shops had dropped from a peak of 29 to 21.
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