New High Street crime unit to target gangs fronting shops after BBC investigation

The then Immigration Minister, Seema Malhotra, described what the BBC had found as a "national scandal" and the then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper later said it was a "disgrace".

In July, mass Freedom of Information requests revealed for the first time that 3,700 illegal shops had operated across the UK.

In November last year, we exposed asylum seekers buying and selling High Street mini marts for cash, criminal kingpins erasing £60,000 illegal working fines, and exposed a Kurdish organised crime gang operating on High Streets the length of Britain.

In response to our investigations, Mahmood launched an "urgent" investigation led by the National Crime Agency (NCA), Immigration Enforcement, HMRC and police forces from across the country. She said the BBC's evidence proved that "the system was broken" and demonstrated a pull factor in the small boat crisis.

This year, in March a senior council worker repeatedly shared with West Midlands authorities reports of children as young as 11 being sexually abused in High Street mini-marts and last month undercover reports exposed how cocaine, cannabis, laughing gas and prescription pills were being offered for sale. One street we visited in the West Midlands was described as "lawless" by an anonymous law enforcement source.

In response, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the government was "absolutely focused" on tackling such criminality, pledging stronger powers and more police officers to do so.

The NCA said 950 people have been arrested and more than £10m worth of goods seized over the past 18 months and the new unit would help it target and disrupt more "high harm offenders".

Sal Melki, deputy director of illicit finance at the NCA, said: "This criminal activity makes our communities less safe and less prosperous.

"It undermines legitimate business, deprives public services of tax revenues, and fuels a range of predicate offences such as the drugs trade, illicit goods, trafficking, and organised immigration crime."

Lord Bichard, chairman of National Trading Standards, said the unit would "help drive a coordinated national response while strengthening local enforcement capability".

John Herriman, chief executive of the CTSI, told the BBC that cuts of about 50% had been made to trading standards resources between 2011 and 2023.

He said there was a "sense" that the situation on High Streets "has been getting worse and worse for a number a years," adding: "That is pretty demoralising."

"This funding is the start of that fight-back process," he said.

Currently courts can order shops to be closed for three months. Herriman said the CTSI wants new powers to be brought in to raise the limit to 12 months, with a complete ban possible for the worst offenders.

Responding to the government plans, the Conservatives said Labour had "done more damage to our High Streets than 75 officers can fix".

Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said there were fewer police officers as well as "anti-business legislation" under the government.

"Crime and antisocial behaviour are at unacceptably high levels, every day, too many people witness things that anger and alarm them," he said, adding a Tory government would aim to put extra police officers on the streets.

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