Clothes with 'luxury' labels and dodgy vapes are among £14 MILLION-worth of counterfeit goods seized in a huge Greater Manchester raid. Officers have been steadfast in tackling the 'grey market' in Strangeways and Cheetham Hill since last autumn.
But the counterfeit trade is not confined to just one corner of Manchester. This week, Greater Manchester Police has dismantled a massive warehouse in Rochdale, where a major counterfeiting operation was taking place.
Rochdale neighbourhood officers came across the online counterfeit distribution site, in Woodbine Street, on Monday (June 26). Inside they discovered an office, preparation area and two large storerooms with shelving stretching from floor to ceiling.
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Those shelves were filled with counterfeit goods - including tobacco, vapes, jewellery, watches, clothing, footwear and accessories. Images from the scene show polo shirts in packaging with 'Burberry' stamped on it and white trainers with a white 'swoosh' similar to Nike's, among stacks of boxes and and clothes inside the warehouse.
Inspector Andy Torkington, of Operation Vulcan, says the massive haul will be a 'significant hit to the pocket of organised criminality'. The Vulcan team's work in recent months has seen the face of 'counterfeit street' change, with hooky shops on Bury New Road and Great Ducie Street almost eradicated.
The team had been busy searching 208 shipping containers from a site in Cheetham Hill for counterfeit gear when they joined Rochdale's officers for the latest raid this week. Officers also worked with Rochdale trading standards, the Lighthouse Security team which has collected counterfeit items for recycling, and brand representatives who confirmed the products were fakes.
Superintendent Richard Warden of GMP Rochdale Division said: "This was a brilliant partnership operation during which huge numbers of counterfeit products were seized. The counterfeit trade is big business for criminals and brings with it much more serious criminality, as has been seen on Bury New Road prior to the launch of Operation Vulcan.
"I hope our work with Operation Vulcan to shut down this online premises sends a clear message to the criminals that GMP will obstruct any attempts to establish this trade elsewhere. Counterfeit is not a victimless crime - it blights communities with more serious crime and violence - and by shutting down this operation, we are cutting off the proceeds of criminals protecting the wider community."
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