Paul Waugh, the Labour and Co-operative MP for Rochdale, has welcomed the Government’s new £30 million nationwide crackdown on organised crime operating through Britain’s high streets.
He said the announcement is a huge boost for Rochdale, which has been leading the country on this issue through the work of the council’s Trading Standards team and Greater Manchester Police.
The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood MP, today announced a new High Street Organised Crime Unit. It will bring together the National Crime Agency, HMRC, Trading Standards, Immigration Enforcement and police forces to target rogue barber shops, vape stores, mini-marts and sweet shops being used as fronts for money laundering, illegal working and the sale of illicit tobacco and counterfeit goods.
The package includes 75 new officers, £6 million of additional funding for Trading Standards, and intensified use of raids, closure orders and cash seizures.
Rochdale has been at the forefront of this fight. Through Operation Tetbury, a joint campaign between Rochdale Borough Council’s Trading Standards team and Greater Manchester Police, more than a dozen shops in the borough have been raided and closed since June 2024.
Officers have seized tens of thousands of illegal cigarettes, kilos of illicit hand-rolling tobacco, banned disposable vapes, counterfeit goods and unsafe products. Stock has been found concealed under a toilet, in commercial bins, in nearby parked cars, on a sofa, and via a chute linking two properties on Drake Street.
Paul Waugh raised the issue directly with the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Questions in July 2025. He warned that bogus barber shops and fake vape shops were undercutting honest traders and damaging Rochdale’s high streets, and welcomed the Prime Minister’s commitment that the Government would ramp up enforcement and accelerate the rollout of digital ID to help police and immigration officers tackle illegal working.
Today’s announcement delivers on that commitment, with a permanent national unit, new officers and new funding to back Trading Standards teams like Rochdale’s.
Paul will continue to work closely with the new High Street Organised Crime Unit, Rochdale Borough Council, Greater Manchester Police and Ministers to make sure Rochdale gets the maximum benefit from the new powers and funding, and to share with the Unit the lessons local Trading Standards officers have learned about how these criminal networks operate.
Paul Waugh MP said:
“This is a brilliant announcement from the Home Secretary and a huge win for towns like Rochdale. A dedicated High Street Organised Crime Unit, 75 new officers, and a real funding boost for Trading Standards is exactly what we have been calling for, and I am delighted the Government is delivering it.
“Rochdale has been leading the country on tackling this for nearly two years. Our Trading Standards officers, working hand in hand with Greater Manchester Police through Operation Tetbury, have shut down shop after shop selling counterfeit cigarettes, banned vapes and dangerous goods to local people. They have done outstanding work in often difficult and unpleasant conditions, and they now have the national backing they deserve.
“I raised the menace of bogus barber shops and fake vape shops in Rochdale directly with the Prime Minister last summer, and today’s announcement shows this Government is listening and acting. By bringing the NCA, HMRC, Trading Standards, Immigration Enforcement and the police together under one roof, Ministers are giving frontline officers the tools they need to drive these criminals out for good.
“I will keep working with the new Unit and with Rochdale’s Trading Standards team to make sure we build on what is working locally and share what we have learned with the rest of the country.
“Rochdale’s high street belongs to the people who live and work here, and to the honest businesses who play by the rules. Thanks to this Government, we now have a real chance to take it back.
“I hope this new unit will act as a catalyst to ministers looking at how to stop criminals from reopening a shop a few hundred yards away after one has closed.”